Octagrabber is SpaceX's autonomous robot that secures landed Falcon 9 boosters to the deck of drone ships — preventing a 25-tonne, 47-metre-tall rocket from toppling over in ocean swells during the journey back to port.
| Operator | SpaceX |
| Type | Autonomous Booster-Securing Robot |
| Status | ● Active |
| Home Port | Aboard drone ships |
| Coast | All coasts |
| Length | ~3m |
| Beam | ~3m |
| Built / Acquired | 2018 |
| Name Origin | Named for its eight-armed gripping mechanism that clamps onto the Falcon 9 octaweb engine section |
| Associated Vehicles | Falcon 9 Block 5, Falcon Heavy |
When a Falcon 9 first stage lands on a drone ship, it is balanced on four deployable landing legs on a flat barge in the open ocean. Without securing, any significant wave action could topple the booster, destroying a vehicle worth tens of millions of dollars and potentially damaging the drone ship itself.
Octagrabber solves this by driving underneath the booster and clamping onto the octaweb — the circular structure at the base of the booster that holds the nine Merlin 1D engines. The robot is controlled remotely, as no humans are aboard the drone ship during or immediately after landing.
Three Octagrabber units are currently in service — one aboard each of SpaceX's active drone ships: A Shortfall of Gravitas, Just Read the Instructions, and Of Course I Still Love You.
The Octagrabber concept evolved from SpaceX's early landing attempts where recovery crew had to manually secure boosters — a dangerous and time-consuming process that limited turnaround speed.