On March 6, 2025, SpaceX shared a video on X titled, “Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy Booster!” “Mechazilla” is the name of a massive tower built by SpaceX. This tower has huge mechanical arms that resemble chopsticks to some extent. The job of these arms is to catch the “Super Heavy Booster.” The Super Heavy Booster is the lower part of the Starship rocket, which helps launch the rocket into space.
While some rockets in the past landed on the ground using legs, SpaceX designed it differently. The Super Heavy Booster returns to the launch site and hovers in the air. Then, Mechazilla’s giant arms gently catch it and hold it mid-air. This was first successfully achieved on October 13, 2024.
Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/JFeJSdnQ5x
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 6, 2025
What is Mechazilla?
According to reports, it is a 400-foot-tall tower. Mechazilla, built at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, is a unique launch and catch tower. Elon Musk himself named it, and Mechazilla is no ordinary tool—it’s an active part of SpaceX’s mission to advance space travel. Its massive arms, called “chopsticks,” are designed to catch rockets in mid-air when they return to Earth after launch. Catching a 230-foot-long rocket moving at high speed mid-air is this tower’s task.
Traditional space programs discarded boosters after a single use, costing billions and slowing progress. But SpaceX wants to catch, refurbish, and relaunch rockets within hours, making it much easier. Mechazilla also helps save time, and on March 6, 2025, it successfully caught the Super Heavy Booster, earning praise from many.
Super Heavy Booster
The Super Heavy Booster is the foundation of SpaceX’s Starship. It’s a massive “engine framework” that helps lift the rocket from the ground into space. It’s so powerful that it can carry numerous satellites, spacecraft, or, in the future, humans to the Moon and Mars. It’s designed for reuse to make space travel cheaper and easier. Standing 230 feet tall and weighing about 250 tons when fully fueled, the Super Heavy is a colossal machine. It’s powered by 33 Raptor engines, which together generate 16 million pounds of thrust—enough to propel Starship into orbit and beyond.
The Super Heavy Booster releases the rocket into space and then returns to Earth for reuse, unlike older boosters that fell into the ocean or burned up in the atmosphere. On its own, it’s a remarkable feat of engineering, but paired with Mechazilla, it becomes part of a system that could redefine spaceflight.