SpaceX Starship

SpaceX Starship
Starship is a two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle and spacecraft under development by SpaceX. It is currently the tallest and most powerful space launch vehicle to have flown. Starship is intended to be fully reusable, which means both stages will be recovered after a mission and reused.
The Starship space vehicle is designed to supplant SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, build SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, and serve crewed spaceflight. SpaceX plans to use Starship vehicles as tankers, refueling other Starships to allow missions to geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A lunar lander variant of Starship is to land astronauts on the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program. Starship is ultimately meant to enable SpaceX's ambition of colonizing Mars.
Starship is made up of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. The booster and spacecraft are both powered by clusters of Raptor rocket engines, which burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Both stages are constructed primarily of stainless steel, a material chosen as an alternative to a series of prior designs. The booster will use its engines to slow itself down before it is caught by a pair of mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. Meanwhile, the Starship spacecraft is protected during atmospheric reentry by its thermal protection system, using a so called ‘belly flop’ manoeuvre where the spacecraft turns from a horizontal into a vertical position, then lands using its engines.
The Starship system aims to achieve frequent space launches at low cost. Development follows an iterative and incremental approach involving frequent, and often destructive, test flights of prototype vehicles. The first flight test of the Starship system took place on 20 April 2023 and ended four minutes after launch with the destruction of the test vehicle.
History
Early design conceptions
Starting with a 2012 announcement of plans to develop a rocket with substantially greater capabilities than SpaceX's existing Falcon 9, the company created a succession of preliminary designs for such a vehicle under various names (Mars Colonial Transporter, Interplanetary Transport System, BFR). Some were substantially different from the current design; the largest one, the Interplanetary Transport System or ITS, massed fully fueled, had a liftoff thrust of and could carry to low Earth orbit while being completely reused. For comparison, the Saturn V had a liftoff thrust of . It also was made of carbon composite. Despite this, they all shared some common features such as being fully reusable and being very large.
In 2019, Starship's structural material was changed from carbon composites to stainless steel. Musk cited the low cost and ease of manufacture, increased strength of stainless steel at cryogenic temperatures, as well as its ability to withstand high heat, as the reasons for the design change. The high temperature at which 300-series steel transitions to plastic deformation would eliminate the need for a heat shield on Starship's leeward side, while the much hotter windward side would be cooled by allowing fuel or water to bleed through micropores in a double-wall stainless steel skin, removing heat by evaporation. However, in July 2019, Musk indicated on Twitter that this would probably not be pursued, instead, thin reusable heat shield tiles which work in a similar way to those of the Space Shuttle would be used. The high melting point of Starship’s stainless steel allows the tiles to be lighter and thinner.
In 2019, SpaceX began to refer to the entire vehicle as Starship, with the second stage being called Starship and the booster Super Heavy. In September 2019, Musk further detailed the lower-stage booster, the upper-stage's method of controlling its descent, the heat shield, orbital refueling capacity, and potential destinations besides Mars. The aft flaps on the spacecraft were reduced from three to two.
In 2019, the design reverted to six Raptor engines, with three optimized for sea-level and three optimized for vacuum. Initial Super Heavy test flights would use fewer engines, perhaps about 20.
Later in 2019 Musk stated that Starship was expected to have an empty mass of and be able to initially transport a payload of , growing to over time. Musk hinted at an expendable variant that could place 250 tonnes into low orbit.
The Raptor design was refined with higher thrust versions. The initial 37 engines were reduced to 31 in 2020. Musk stated that SpaceX would complete hundreds of cargo flights before carrying human passengers. In April 2021, SpaceX publicly forecast that Earth to Earth passenger flights would be common within five years.
Low-altitude flights
SpaceX was already constructing the first full-size Starship Mk1 and Mk2 upper-stage prototypes, at the SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, and Cocoa, Florida, respectively. Neither prototype flew: Mk1 was destroyed in November 2019 during a pressure stress test and Mk2's Florida facility was abandoned and deconstructed throughout 2020. After the Mk prototypes, SpaceX began naming its new Starship upper-stage prototypes with the prefix "SN", short for "serial number". No prototypes between SN1 and SN4 flew either—SN1 and SN3 collapsed during pressure stress tests, and SN4 exploded after its fifth engine firing.
In June 2020, SpaceX started constructing a launch pad for orbit-capable Starship rockets. The first flight-capable Starship, SN5, was cylindrical as it had no flaps or nose cone: just one Raptor engine, fuel tanks, and a mass simulator. On 5 August 2020, SN5 performed a high flight and successfully landed on a nearby pad. On 3 September 2020, the similar-looking Starship SN6 repeated the hop; later that month, the Raptor Vacuum engine was fired in full duration at McGregor, Texas.
High-altitude flights
Starship SN8 was the first fully complete Starship upper-stage prototype. It underwent four preliminary static fire tests between October and November 2020. On 9 December 2020, SN8 flew, slowly turning off its three engines one by one, and reached an altitude of . After SN8 dove back to the ground, its engines were hampered by low methane header tank pressure during the landing attempt, which led to a hard impact with the landing pad. Because SpaceX had violated its launch license and ignored warnings of worsening shock wave damage, the Federal Aviation Administration investigated the incident for two months.
On 2 February 2021, Starship SN9 launched to in a flight path similar to SN8. The prototype crashed upon landing because one engine did not ignite properly. A month later, on 3 March, Starship SN10 launched on the same flight path as SN9. The vehicle landed hard and crushed its landing legs, leaning to one side. A fire was seen at the vehicle's base. It exploded less than ten minutes later, probably due to a propellant tank rupture. On 30 March, Starship SN11 flew into thick fog along the same flight path. The vehicle exploded during descent, possibly due to excess propellant in a Raptor's methane turbopump.
In March 2021, the company disclosed a public construction plan for two sub-orbital launch pads, two orbital launch pads, two landing pads, two test stands, and a large propellant tank farm. The company soon proposed developing the surrounding Boca Chica Village, Texas into a company town named Starbase. Locals raised concerns about SpaceX's authority, power, and a potential threat for eviction through eminent domain. In early April, the orbital launch pad's fuel storage tanks began mounting. Starship prototypes SN12, SN13, and SN14 were scrapped before completion; SN15 was selected to fly instead. SN15 had better avionics, structure, and upgraded engines. On 5 May 2021, SN15 launched, completed the same maneuvers as older prototypes, and landed safely. Even though SN15, like SN10, had a small fire in the engine area after landing, it was extinguished, completing the first successful high-altitude test. According to a later report by SpaceX, SN15 experienced several issues while landing, including the loss of tank pressure and an engine.
Development towards first orbital launch
In July 2021, Super Heavy BN3 conducted its first full-duration static firing and lit three engines. Around this time, SpaceX changed their naming scheme from "SN" to "Ship" for Starship crafts, and from "BN" to "Booster" for Super Heavy boosters. A month later, using cranes, Ship 20 was stacked atop Booster 4 to form the full launch vehicle for the first time; Ship 20 was also the first craft to have a body-tall heat shield. In October 2021, the catching mechanical arms, also known as "chopsticks", were installed onto the integration tower and the first tank farm's construction was completed. Two weeks later, NASA and SpaceX announced plans to construct Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 49.
The public spotted the Raptor 2 engine at the start of 2022. Raptor 2 has a simpler design, less mass, wider throat, and an increase in central combustion chamber pressure from to . These changes yielded an increase in thrust from to , but a decrease of 3 seconds (~0.9%) of specific impulse. In February 2022, after stacking Ship 20 on top of Booster 4 using mechanical arms, Elon Musk gave a presentation on Starship, Raptor engine and Florida spaceport development at Starbase.
In June 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration determined that Starbase did not need a full environmental impact assessment but that SpaceX must address issues identified in the preliminary environmental assessment. In July, Booster 7 tested spinning the liquid oxygen turbopumps on all thirty-three Raptor engines, resulting in an explosion at the vehicle's base, which destroyed a pressure pipe and causing minor damage to the launchpad. By the end of November, Ship 24 had performed 2- and full 6-engine static test fires, while Booster 7 had performed static fires with 1, 3, 7, 14, 11 engines and finally on February 9, 2023, a static fire with 31 engines at 50% throttle (33 was attempted but one engine was disabled pre-firing, and another engine aborted). In January 2023, Starship underwent a full wet dress rehearsal at Starbase, where it was filled with more than of propellant.
First attempted orbital test flight
After a canceled launch attempt on 17 April 2023, due to a frozen valve, Booster 7 and Ship 24 lifted off on 20 April at 13:33 UTC in the first orbital flight test. Three engines were disabled during the launch sequence and several more failed during the flight. The spacecraft also lost thrust vectoring control of the Raptor engines later in the flight, which led to the rocket starting an out of control tumbling motion. The vehicle reached a maximum altitude of .
At around 3 minutes following liftoff, the rocket received a command to activate the automated flight termination system. However, the flight termination system failed to destroy the vehicle, the vehicle tumbled for another 40 seconds, and finally exploded. Had the launch proceeded as planned, the spacecraft would have continued to fly with its ground track passing through the Straits of Florida and eastward around the globe, with a hard splashdown in the Pacific Ocean around northwest of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, having made nearly one full revolution around the Earth.
Preparations for the second orbital test flight
After the first test flight significant work was done on the launch mount to repair the damage it sustained during the test and to prevent future issues. The foundation of the launch tower was reinforced and a steel water deluge flame deflector was built under the launch mount. Ship 25 was rolled to the suborbital launch site in May and underwent spin prime and static fire testing ahead of flight. Once that was completed, Booster 9 was rolled to the launch site to undergo cryogenic proof testing, spin primes and static fires of its set of engines. As of September 7th, Ship 25 is stacked onboard Booster 9 on the launch mount.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversaw the investigation of Starship's first flight failure, at the end of which SpaceX reported it had identified 63 needed corrective actions before another Starship launch license could take place. On September 8, 2023, the FAA concurred with SpaceX's report and closed the investigation. The FAA also announced that the full investigatory report would not be released due to confidential contents including export control information. FAA officials stated, "The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of Starship launches at Boca Chica." A launch license approval from the FAA could come as early as October. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to start a formal review of SpaceX's modifications, and depending on the situation, the next launch may not occur until 2024. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received the final biological assessment from the Federal Aviation Administration. William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability, called for the FAA to increase licensing staff. On October 19, the FWS surveyed the area around Starbase and the consultation with the FAA has been extended into November. The FWS is reviewing the changes to the launch pad, especially the water deluge system. On October 31, 2023, the FAA concluded the safety review portion of the launch license, however, the FWS environmental review has not yet concluded.
Funding
As part of the development of the Human Landing System for the Artemis program, SpaceX was awarded in April 2021 a $2.89 billion contract from NASA to develop the Starship lunar lander for Artemis III. Blue Origin, a bidding competitor to SpaceX, disputed the decision and began a legal case against NASA and SpaceX in August 2021, stalling the work of SpaceX and NASA on the program with SpaceX for the duration of these legal disputes. It was dismissed by the Court of Federal Claims after three months, and Blue Origin was awarded $3.4 billion for their lunar lander two years later.
In 2022, NASA awarded SpaceX $1.15 billion for a second lunar lander for Artemis 4. The same year, SpaceX was awarded a $102 million five-year contract to develop the Rocket Cargo program for the United States Space Force.
SpaceX develops the Starship with private funding. SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen disclosed in court that SpaceX has invested more than $3 billion into the Starbase facility and Starship systems from July 2014 to May 2023. Elon Musk stated in April 2023 that SpaceX expects to spend about $2 billion on Starship development in 2023.
Design
When stacked and fully fueled, Starship has a mass of approximately , a diameter of , and a height of . The rocket has been designed with the goal of being fully reusable to reduce launch costs and maintenance between flights. In its fully reusable configuration Starship is designed to carry to low Earth orbit, while the expended configuration is projected to have a payload capacity of .
The rocket consists of the Super Heavy first-stage or booster, and the Starship second-stage or spacecraft, powered by the Raptor and Raptor Vacuum engines. The bodies of both rocket stages are made from stainless steel, giving Starship its strength for atmospheric entry and distinctive look.
According to Eric Berger of Ars Technica, the manufacturing process starts with rolls of steel, which are unrolled, cut, and welded along the cut edge to create a cylinder of in diameter, in height, and 4 mm (0.16 in) thick, and around in mass. These cylinders, along with the nose cones, are stacked and welded along their edges to form the outer layer of the rocket. Inside, the methane and oxygen tanks are separated by the robot-made domes. Also according to Berger, Starship's reusability and stainless-steel construction has influenced the Terran R rocket and Project Jarvis, the second stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn super heavy-lift launch vehicle.
Raptor engine
Raptor is a family of rocket engines developed by SpaceX exclusively for use in Starship and Super Heavy vehicles. It burns liquid oxygen and methane in a highly efficient but complex full-flow staged combustion power cycle. The Raptor engine uses methane as the fuel of choice over other rocket propellants because it produces less soot and can be directly synthesized from carbon dioxide and water, using the Sabatier reaction. Unlike previous reusable rocket engines such as the RS-25, the engines are designed to be reused many times with little maintenance.
The engine structure itself is mostly aluminum, copper, and steel; oxidizer-side turbopumps and manifolds subject to corrosive oxygen-rich flames are made of an Inconel-like SX500 superalloy. Raptor's main combustion chamber can contain of pressure, the highest of all rocket engines. Certain components are 3D printed. The Raptor's gimbaling range is 15°, higher than the RS-25's 12.5° and the Merlin's 5°. In mass production, SpaceX aims to produce each engine at a unit cost of US$250,000.
Raptor operates with an oxygen-to-methane mixture ratio of about , lower than the stoichiometric mixture ratio of necessary to burn all propellants completely. Operation at the stoichiometric ratio provides better performance in theory but usually results in overheating and destruction of the engine. The propellants leave the pre-burners. They are injected into the main combustion chamber as hot gases instead of liquid droplets, enabling much higher power density as propellants mix rapidly via diffusion. The methane and oxygen are at such high temperatures and pressures that they ignite on contact, eliminating the need for igniters in the main combustion chamber.
At sea level, the standard Raptor engine produces at a specific impulse of 327 seconds, increasing to 350 seconds in a vacuum. Raptor Vacuum, used on the Starship upper stage, is modified with a regeneratively cooled nozzle extension made of brazed steel tubes, increasing its expansion ratio to about 90 and its specific impulse in vacuum to 380 seconds.
Super Heavy booster
The first-stage booster, named Super Heavy is tall and wide, and contains thirty-three Raptor engines arranged in concentric rings. The outermost ring of 20 engines are of the "Raptor Boost" configuration with gimbal actuators removed to save weight and a modified injector with reduced throttle performance in exchange for greater thrust. At full power, all engines produce a collective of thrust.
The booster's tanks can hold of propellant, consisting of of liquid oxygen and of liquid methane. However, current designs can only hold of propellant. The final design will have a dry mass between and , with the tanks weighing and the interstage .
The booster is equipped with four electrically actuated grid fins, each with a mass of . Adjacent pairs of grid fins are only spaced sixty degrees apart instead of being orthogonal (as is the case on Falcon 9) to provide more authority in the pitch axis. Also, unlike Falcon 9, the grid fins do not retract and remain extended during ascent. The booster can be lifted through protruding hardpoints located between gridfins. Above the grid fins is the vented interstage, which enables starship to use hot staging, which is when the second stage separates when some of the first stages engine are still firing. According to Elon Musk, this process may provide up to 10% increase in payload to orbit. During unpowered flight in the vacuum of space, control authority is provided by cold gas thrusters fed with residual ullage gas.
Starship spacecraft
The Starship spacecraft is tall, in diameter, and has 6 Raptor engines, 3 of which are optimized for use in outer space. Future vehicles may have an additional 3 Raptor Vacuum engines for increased payload capacity. The vehicle's payload bay, measuring tall by in diameter, is the largest of any active or planned launch vehicle; its internal volume of is slightly larger than the ISS's pressurized volume. SpaceX may also provide a tall payload bay configuration for even larger payloads.Starship has a total propellant capacity of across its main tanks and header tanks. The header tanks are better insulated due to their position and are reserved for use to flip and land the spacecraft following reentry. A set of reaction control thrusters, which use the pressure in the fuel tank, control attitude while in space.
The spacecraft has four body flaps to control the spacecraft's orientation and help dissipate energy during atmospheric entry, composed of two forward flaps and two aft flaps. According to SpaceX, the flaps replace the need for wings or tailplane, reduce the fuel needed for landing, and allow landing at destinations in the Solar System where runways don't exist (for example, Mars). Under the forward flaps, hardpoints are used for lifting and catching the spacecraft via mechanical arms. The flap's hinges are sealed in aero-covers because they would be easily damaged during reentry.
Starship's heat shield, composed of thousands of hexagonal black tiles that can withstand temperatures of , is designed to be used many times without maintenance between flights. The tiles are made of silica and are attached with pins rather than glued, with small gaps in between to allow for heat expansion. Their hexagonal shape facilitate mass production and prevent hot plasma from causing severe damage to the vehicle.
Variants
For satellite launch, Starship will have a large cargo door that will open to release payloads and close upon reentry instead of a more conventional jettisonable nose-cone fairing. Instead of a cleanroom, payloads are integrated directly into Starship's payload bay, which requires purging the payload bay with temperature-controlled ISO class 8 clean air. To deploy Starlink satellites, the cargo door is be replaced with a slot and dispenser rack, whose mechanism has been compared to a Pez candy dispenser.
Crewed Starship vehicles would replace the cargo bay with a pressurized crew section and have a life support system. For long-duration missions, such as crewed flights to Mars, SpaceX describes the interior as potentially including "private cabins, large communal areas, centralized storage, solar storm shelters, and a viewing gallery." Starship's life support system is expected to recycle resources such as air and water from waste.
Starship Human Landing System (HLS) is a crewed lunar lander variant of the Starship vehicle that is extensively modified for landing, operation, and takeoff from the lunar surface. It features modified landing legs, a body-mounted solar array, a set of thrusters mounted mid-body to assist with final landing and takeoff, two airlocks, and an elevator to lower crew and cargo onto the lunar surface. Starship HLS will be able to land more than of payload on the Moon per flight.
Starship will be able to be refueled by docking with separately launched Starship propellant tanker spacecraft in orbit. Doing so would increase the spacecraft's mass capacity and allow it to reach higher-energy targets, such as geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A Starship propellant depot could store methane and oxygen on-orbit, and will be used by Starship HLS to replenish its fuel tanks.
Planned mission profile
The payload is to be integrated into Starship at a separate facility and then rolled out to the spaceport. After Super Heavy and Starship are stacked onto their launch mount by lifting from hardpoints, they are loaded with fuel via the quick disconnect arm and support. Roughly four hundred truck deliveries are needed for one launch, although some commodities are provided on-site via an air separation unit. Then, the arm and mount detach, all thirty-three engines of Super Heavy ignite, and the rocket lifts off.
After two minutes, at an altitude of , Super Heavy cuts off 30 of its engines, leaving only three center ones running at 50% thrust. Then, the ship ignites its engines while still attached to the booster and separates. The booster then returns to the launch site in a controlled descent, being caught by a pair of mechanical arms. After six minutes of flight, about of propellant remains inside the booster.
Meanwhile, the Starship spacecraft accelerates to orbital velocity. Once in orbit, the spacecraft is planned to be refueled by one or more tanker variant Starships, increasing the spacecraft's capacity. Musk estimated in a tweet that 8 launches would be needed to completely refuel a Starship in low Earth orbit, having extrapolated this by using Starship's payload to orbit and combining it with how much fuel a fully fueled Starship contains. To land on bodies without an atmosphere, such as the Moon, Starship will fire its engines and thrusters to slow down. To land on bodies with an atmosphere such as the Earth and Mars, Starship first slows by entering the atmosphere via a heat shield. The spacecraft would then perform a "belly-flop" maneuver by diving back through the atmosphere body at a 60° angle to the ground, controlling its fall using four flaps at the front and aft sides of the spacecraft.
Shortly before landing, the Raptor engines fire, using fuel from the header tanks, causing the spacecraft to resume vertical orientation. At this stage, Raptor engines' gimbaling, throttle, and reaction control system's firing help to maneuver the craft. A pseudospectral optimal control algorithm by the German Aerospace Center predicted that the landing flip would tilt up to 20° from the ground's perpendicular line, and the angle would be reduced to zero on touchdown. Future Starships are envisioned to be caught by mechanical arms, like the booster.
If Starship's rocket stages land on a pad, a mobile hydraulic lift moves them to a transporter vehicle. If the rocket stages land on a floating platform, they will be transported by a barge to a port and finally transported by road. The recovered Super Heavy and Starship will either be positioned on the launch mount for another launch or refurbished at a SpaceX facility.
Potential uses
Starship's reusability is expected to reduce launch costs, expanding space access to more payloads and entities. Musk has predicted that a Starship orbital launch will eventually cost $1 million. Eurospace's director of research, Pierre Lionnet, however, stated that Starship's launch price would likely be higher because of the rocket's development cost (estimated by Musk in 2023 to be roughly 10 billion USD, with 3-5 billion having been spent as of 2023).
Crewed and cargo launches
Starship also plans to launch the second generation of SpaceX's Starlink satellites, which deliver global high-speed internet. A space analyst at financial services company Morgan Stanley stated development of Starship and Starlink are intertwined, with Starship launch capacity enabling cheaper Starlink launches, and Starlink's profits financing Starship's development costs. In deficit from its inception to 2022, Starlink was first reported slightly profitable in 2023.
As of 19 August 2022, the Superbird-9 communication satellite is Starship's first and only known contract for externally made commercial satellites. The satellite weighs dry mass, planned for 2024 launch to a geostationary orbit. In the future, the spacecraft's crewed version could be used for space tourism—for example, the DearMoon project funded by Yusaku Maezawa. Another example is the third flight of the Polaris program announced by Jared Isaacman.
Farther in the future, Starship may host point-to-point flights (called "Earth to Earth" flights by SpaceX), traveling anywhere on Earth in under an hour. SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said point-to-point travel could become cost competitive with conventional business class flights. John Logsdon, an academic on space policy and history, said point-to-point travel is unrealistic, as the craft would switch between weightlessness to 5 g of acceleration. In January 2022, SpaceX was awarded a $102 million five-year contract to develop the Rocket Cargo program for the United States Space Force.
Space exploration
Starship's lunar lander Starship HLS was initially chosen by NASA as the sole lunar lander for the Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 crewed missions, as part of the Artemis program. In 2023 NASA awarded a contract to Blue Origin to develop a second lunar lander amidst concerns by NASA over delays in the Starship HLS development timeline. The lander is to be launched into a low earth orbit, and refueled by multiple Starship tanker spacecraft. Once it has enough fuel, it will perform a trans lunar injection burn and enter a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the moon. Then, the crews on board the Orion spacecraft are launched with the Space Launch System. Orion then docks with Starship HLS, and the crew transfers into the lander. The lander then performs a powered descent, landing near the lunar south pole. The crew will then perform the surface portion of their mission. The HLS will then ascend with the crew and rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft. The crew then transfers into the Orion spacecraft and Orion performs a burn to return to earth.
Opinions differ on how Starship's planned low launch cost will affect the cost of space science. According to Waleed Abdalati, former NASA Chief Scientist, the planned low launch cost would cheapen satellite replacement and enable more ambitious missions for budget-limited programs. According to Lionnet, low launch cost might not reduce the overall cost of a science mission significantly: of the Rosetta space probe and Philae lander's mission cost of $1.7 billion, the cost of launch (by the expendable Ariane 5) only made up ten percent.
Astronomers have called to consider Starship's larger mass to orbit and wider cargo bay for proposed space telescopes such as LUVOIR, and to develop larger telescopes to take advantage of these capabilities. Starship's 9 meters fairing width could hold an 8 meters-wide large space telescope mirror in a single piece, alleviating the need for complex origami deployments such as that of the JWST's 6.5m mirror which added cost and delays.
The low launch cost could also allow probes to use heavier, more common, cheaper materials, such as glass instead of beryllium for large telescope mirrors. At 5 tons, the JWST represents only 10% of the mass deliverable by a Starship to the Sun-Earth L2 point, and therefore minimizing the weight of the telescope would not have been a dominant design consideration.
A refueled Starship could launch 100 ton observatories to the Moon, L2 Lagrange point and anywhere else in the solar system. Starship might also launch probes orbiting Neptune or Io, or large sample-return missions. Astrophysicists have noted Starship could deploy multiple antennae up to 30 meters in length, opening up radio astronomy to frequencies below 30MHz and wavelengths greater than 10m. This would give the ability to study the Universe's dark ages, unfeasible on Earth due to the atmosphere and human radio background.
Space colonization
Starship is intended to be able to land crews on Mars. The spacecraft is launched to low Earth orbit, and is then refueled by around five tanker spacecraft before heading to Mars. After landing on Mars, the Sabatier reaction is used to synthesize liquid methane and liquid oxygen, Starship's fuel, in a power-to-gas plant. The plant's raw resources are Martian water and Martian carbon dioxide. On Earth, similar technologies could be used to make carbon-neutral propellant for the rocket.
SpaceX and Musk have stated their goal of colonizing Mars to ensure the long-term survival of humanity, with an ambition of sending a thousand Starship spacecraft to Mars during a Mars launch window in a very far future. Musk had maintained an interest in Mars colonization since 2001, when he joined the Mars Society and researched Mars-related space experiments before founding SpaceX in 2002. Musk has made tentative estimates of Starship's Mars landing; in March 2022, he gave a date of 2029 for the first crewed Mars landing. SpaceX has not published technical plans about Starship's life support systems, radiation protection, or in-orbit refueling.
Facilities
Testing and manufacturing
Starbase consists of a manufacturing facility and launch site, and is located at Boca Chica, Texas. Both facilities operate twenty-four hours a day. A maximum of 450 full-time employees may be onsite. The site is planned to consist of two launch sites, one payload processing facility, one seven-acre solar farm, and other facilities. , the expansion plan's permit has been withdrawn by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, citing lack of information provided. The company leases Starbase's land for the STARGATE research facility, owned by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. It uses part of it for Starship development.
At McGregor, Texas, the Rocket Development facility tests all Raptor engines. The facility has two main test stands: one horizontal stand for both engine types and one vertical stand for sea-level-optimized rocket engines. Other test stands are used for checking Starship's reaction control thrusters and Falcon's Merlin engines. The McGregor facility previously hosted test flights of landable first stages—Grasshopper and F9R Dev1. In the future, a nearby factory, which was under construction, will make the new generation of sea-level Raptors while SpaceX's headquarters in California will continue building the Raptor Vacuum and test new designs.
At Florida, a facility at Cocoa purifies silica for Starship heat-shield tiles, producing a slurry that is then shipped to a facility at Cape Canaveral. In the past, workers constructed the Starship Mk2 prototype in competition with Starbase's crews. The Kennedy Space Center, also in Florida, is planned to host other Starship facilities, such as Starship launch sites at Launch Complex 39A, the planned Launch Complex 49, and a production facility at Roberts Road. This production facility is being expanded from "Hangar X", the Falcon rocket boosters' storage and maintenance facility. It will include a building, loading dock, and a place for constructing integration tower sections.
Launch sites
Starbase is planned to host two launch sites, named Pad A and Pad B. A launch site at Starbase has large facilities, such as a tank farm, an orbital launch mount, and an integration tower. Smaller facilities are present at the launch site: tanks surrounding the area containing methane, oxygen, nitrogen, helium, hydraulic fluid, etc.; subcoolers near the tank farm cool propellant using liquid nitrogen; and various pipes are installed at large facilities. Each tank farm consists of eight tanks, enough to support one orbital launch. The current launch mount on Pad A has a water sound suppression system, twenty clamps holding the booster, and a quick disconnect mount providing liquid fuel and electricity to the Super Heavy booster before it lifts off.
The integration tower or launch tower consists of steel truss sections, a lightning rod on top, and a pair of mechanical arms that can lift, catch and recover the booster. The decision was made to enable flights and reduce the rocket's mass and part count. The mechanical arms are attached to a carriage and controlled by a pulley at the top of the tower. The pulley is linked to a winch and spool at the base of the tower using a cable. Using the winch, the carriage, and mechanical arms can move vertically, with support from bearings attached at the sides of the carriage. A linear hydraulic actuator moves the arms horizontally. Tracks are mounted on top of arms, which are used to position the booster or spacecraft. The tower is mounted with a quick disconnect arm extending to and contracting from the Starship spacecraft; its functions are similar to the quick disconnect mount that powers the booster.
Since 2021, the company is constructing a second Starship launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A, which is currently used to launch Crew Dragon capsules to the International Space Station. SpaceX plans to make a separate pad at 39A's north, named Launch Complex 49. Because of Launch Complex 39A's Crew Dragon launches, the company is studying how to strengthen the pad against the possibility of a Starship explosion and proposed to retrofit Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 instead. The towers and mechanical arms at the Florida launch sites should be similar to the one at Starbase, with improvements gained from the experience at Boca Chica.
Phobos and Deimos were the names of two Starship offshore launch platforms, both in renovation as of March 2022. Before being purchased from Valaris Limited in June 2020, they were nearly identical oil platforms named Valaris 8501 and Valaris 8500. However, following further analysis from SpaceX, it has been announced that the offshore platforms were not suitable for Starship launches. The platforms were sold in early 2023.
Community reception
Outside the space community, reception to Starship's development among nearby locales has been mixed, especially from cities close to the Starbase spaceport. Proponents of SpaceX's arrival said the company would provide money, education, and job opportunities to the country's poorest areas. Fewer than one-fifth of those 25 or older in the Rio Grande Valley have a bachelor's degree, in comparison to the national average of one-third. The local government has stated that the company boosted the local economy by hiring residents and investing, aiding the three-tenths of the population who live in poverty.
Activist Elias Cantu of the League of United Latin American Citizens said the company encourages Brownsville's gentrification, with an ever-increasing property valuation. Even though Starbase had originally planned to launch Falcon rockets when the original environmental assessment was completed in 2014, the site in 2019 was subsequently used to develop Starship, ultimately requiring a revised environmental assessment. Some of the tests have ended in large explosions, causing major disruption to residents and wildlife reserves. The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe and environmental activists also allege that SpaceX have overpoliced the area, disrupting indigenous ceremonies and local fishing.
Starship's first integrated spaceflight attempt blasted large amounts of sand in the air, reaching communities within a 10-km (6-mile) radius. A small brushfire on nearby state parkland also occurred. There were concerns about the launch's impact on the health of both human residents and endangered species because of the sand blast, which was rumored to be concrete and silt particulate matter before analyses ruled against it.
The impact of the first launch led to a lawsuit against the FAA, later joined by SpaceX, from four environmental groups and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe. The disruption to residents is compounded by SpaceX's frequent closures of the road to the beach for vehicle testing. Some residents have moved away or requested financial reparations from the company.
Notes
See also
Comparison of orbital launch systems
Comparison of orbital launcher families
Long March 9, a super-heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by China, designed to be reusable and close to Starship in tons to orbit
SpaceX reusable launch system development program
References
External links
Programmatic Environmental Assessment by the Federal Aviation Administration
Starship of SpaceX on eoPortal directory, administered by the European Space Agency
Tim Dodd's Starship interviews with Elon Musk on YouTube:
A conversation with Elon Musk about Starship, 2019
Starbase and Starship tour, 2021: part 1, part 2, and part 3
Launch tower and Raptor engine tour, 2022: overview, launch infrastructure, Raptor engine
Articles containing video clips
Cargo spacecraft
Crewed spacecraft
SpaceX launch vehicles
VTVL rockets
Proposed reusable launch systems
Reusable spaceflight technology
Reusable spacecraft
Reusable launch systems