Well apparently they’re looking into ways to catch the rocket with a landing arm looking platform. Really I think they need to get those engines to fire in any circumstance. But with N=2 it’s hard to know anything.
That's for the booster. The goal is to skip landing legs for the booster, as it'll only operate around Earth, so it's "easy" to build infrastructure instead.
Starship (the 2nd stage) will always do that flip & land on legs, as it also needs to do it on Mars.
Starship (the 2nd stage) will always do that flip & land on legs, as it also needs to do it on Mars.