SpaceX’s Starship
Arguably the most important launch vehicle currently in development, Starship promises to revolutionize the spaceflight industry. SpaceX pitches the 394-foot-tall (120-meter) rocket as a transportation system “designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.” The company is currently under contract with NASA to leverage the system as a lunar landing for future Artemis missions to the Moon. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk envisions the fully reusable Starship as the vehicle that will make colonization of Mars possible, but his timelines on this leave much to be desired, as does his strategy for making it happen.
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The liquid methane-powered Starship consists of two stages, the Starship upper stage and the Super Heavy booster, both of which are being designed to perform controlled vertical landings. After stage separation, the 230-foot-tall (69-meter) booster will return to the launch site, where mechanical arms mounted to the launch tower will attempt to “catch” the descending Super Heavy.
The Super Heavy is powered by 33 Raptor engines, combining for an estimated 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. The launch vehicle should be capable of hoisting 150 metric tons (330,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The upper stage has undergone several suborbital tests and performed a single successful landing, while the booster has gone through a series of static fire tests, including a full-scale static fire test on February 9 during which 31 of the 33 engines were engaged. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that’s sufficient thrust for a trip to space, setting the stage for the first orbital test of the fully integrated system later this month (pending a launch license from the FAA).
