Reply to post: Let's look at what's there...

Let's look at what's there...

1. There are 4 pistons, which can only engage with the 4 landing legs on the Falcon 9 core.

2. There are exposed cables on the robot, so it's not for "hot" use: The core must at least be vented (perhaps a minute after touchdown).

3. The robot must be mobile. That may seem obvious from the umbilical, but it's wheels (or treads) aren't visible. It likely moves very slowly.

Add it all up, and it seems the robot's purpose is to move freshly-landed cores.

But move them where? Why do this?

For the trip to port, it would seem best to have the core at the precise center of the barge to minimize combined pitch and roll motion. So the robot could be used to center-up a core after an off-center landing. But there have been no cores toppling over on the way home after an off-center landing, so while this use seems possible, it can't be the primary use of the robot.

As others have said, it makes sense to use a robot if another core is on its way to the barge. A robot is far cheaper than building (and managing, maintaining, operating) additional barges! Plus, landed cores are quite light: Shifting them to the end of the barge won't significantly affect it's trim, and I suspect the barge has floodable compartments to manage trim with high accuracy.

The key complication is if the second core landing fails: Two cores could be lost instead of one. So, to me, the robot indicates SpaceX's very high confidence in nailing every single landing, no matter how crowded the barge may be with previously landed cores.

Even if the cores aren't from the same Falcon Heavy mission! What if both SpaceX pads have flights on the same or sequential days? It would make huge sense to keep the barge out there either until it is full, or there is a break in the launch schedule.

Remember, SpaceX production plans allow for at least two launches per week. And that number EXCLUDES reflights, which could increase the launch rate by at least 50%. If we assume most/all are at Canaveral, then three launches per week with most cores being recovered is way more than a single barge can handle, unless that single barge can handle multiple landings before returning to port.

Now, let's look again at the case of handling a pair of Falcon Heavy cores. I think this scenario is less likely due to the time needed to permit a core to cool and vent prior to being moved. Nobody wants to be shuttling armed bombs across the deck! Even a minor mishap could take the barge out of commission for the next Falcon Heavy core, which is likely less than a minute behind the first.

The robot's most likely use seems to be to support multiple recoveries for multiple missions over a period of days, perhaps up to a week.