Is this part of the new Booster catch mechanism?

Full flyover video will be up tomorrow.

I really hope that this is the catch mechanism so we can stop speculating that every unknown thing is the catch mechanism.

I believe it’s the lifting structure to put super heavy on the launch mount then starship on top. So the crane structure that will sit atop the tower. Pretty sure they would prioritise stacking over catching!

Good shout.

Thanks for the quick updates on this now that it's finally about to come together.

Yes. I'm 99.9999999% sure it is. Looking at the way the black branched pipe sections have been laid out on the ground, they match the horizontal cross section shape/profile of the tower. I'd say this is the frame for the carriages which rides the 3 pairs of vertical linear rails. The boxy sections are probably either the carriages themselves (minus the bogies or equivalent to interface to the linear rails, which doesn't appear to have been delivered yet as far as I can tell from looking at various RGV aerials & NSF footage) and/or parts of the structure for attaching the arms to the carriage frame. To move the whole thing up & down the tower, the cable(s) from the drawworks will go up the back of the tower, through a pulley system on the top level, then down the front via the big overhang, attach to more pulleys on the frame and then loop back up the tower, through another pulley system at the top, then down the other back face to the uptake/spooling(?) drum/reel adjacent to the drawworks. The arms will be mounted onto the frame and either be movable around the frame, or at least able to articulate in some manner to allow fine control of the position needed to get them into place for lifting & catching operations.

Thanks, and congrats for the update!

Yellow arm is built like a gate, the load carries down to the lower mount, the bottom is the visual right of the structure( in the picture), the baring element in the yellow arm, is were all the reinforcing parts are focused at the visual top in this photo. I believe this yellow structure is the left main load/catch arm. Heavy black pipe- not enough info to tell yet. Center lighter duty parts cannot support a catch of a super heavy and must be in a support role. they're just not strong enough. My best guesses.

Now we're talking

What ever the shape, it’s going to be very interesting watching it develop and then work…thanks Mauricio

Seeing all this seems to take on a normal look. I mean, this truly is absolutely crazy to even think if it was not part of an Elon project that it would be just crazy. NASA would not have done this In a hundred years, yet Musk Dreams Big and here it all is and It Looks Normal and of course it will work. Musk just makes living more interesting.

I’ve wanted to see this ever since Elon mentioned catching the booster. Can’t wait to see what the structure will look like, installed.

One big ass puzzle!! Excited to see it come together though

Looks good.

Very well could be

I wonder if all that thin wall piping is for dumping water (a LOT of water) onto the landing pad to prevent the kind of damage we saw of a few of the test launches/landings? It almost looks like it will form a square with pipes pointing inward.

The beauty !!

These are 2 sets of pincer like structures in the middle. The one with the umbrellas is almost done. The long piece in the middle is the vertical standoff between the 2 pincers. The 'hands' are not there yet. I think the large black tubing goes around the tower. Dont know what the yellow ones are. They need a structure to lift the rocket on the stand and some sort of strongback.

Is the final design TOP SECRET? I've been wondering, and see a lot of speculative designs, but they don't seem to function in the current design. FINALLY, something close. This is BUCK ROGERS!

Yes. They're structural arms with contact points for super-heavy