Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, posted an animated animation on Tuesday. Depicting the company’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, together known as Starship, on their way to Mars.
The animation shows how the Starship rocket and its Super Heavy booster would launch from a futuristic spaceport — most likely the Starbase facility in Texas, where it is being created–before refueling in orbit and continuing their seven-month trek to Mars.
Both the booster and the Starship rocket land vertically, enabling future launches.
Musk is Confident
In a tweet accompanying the video, SpaceX noted, “A completely and swiftly reusable launch vehicle is vital to a future in which humankind is out exploring the stars.”
“This will be real in our lifetime,” Mr. Musk concluded.
SpaceX is preparing for the first orbital test of its Starship spacecraft. Which will take off from Starbase and fly 90 minutes around the Earth before landing off the coast of Hawaii.
Mr. Musk said in a presentation last week that the 119-meter rocket would most likely take off next month. While regulatory permission and more technical advancements were still needed.
In what was the first substantial starship update in over two years, the tech tycoon added, “We have gotten a rough sign there may be a clearance in March.”
Only one prior high-altitude Starship flight test resulted in the rocket landing intact. With the vast rest ending in spectacular explosions.
SpaceX intends to mass-produce Starship rockets once the research is complete in order to construct a 1,000-strong fleet capable of carrying people and cargo across the Solar System.
Reducing the expense of space travel is critical to achieving the aim of making humankind a multi-planet species, which is why reusability has received so much attention.
“How much would an airplane ticket cost if planes were not reusable?” Mr. Musk thinks the Super Heavy rocket might be used every hour.
Mr. Musk believes, each launch might cost as little as $10 million per trip, which is “crazy inexpensive” and “ridiculously fantastic” by current space standards.
SpaceX has performed a series of test flights of the top half of the spaceship that will travel to orbit and then return during the last three years, demonstrating how it may belly-flop in the atmosphere and then land.
On May 2021, one flight was successful, while the others resulted in explosions. A much bigger booster stage, known as Super Heavy, with hundreds of engines is required to reach orbit. That hasn’t been put to the test yet.
Musk has a history of making overly optimistic scheduling promises. When he initially talked about his Mars rocket in 2016, he showed that the first test mission to Mars, without humans on board, would launch in 2022 and that the first people to visit Mars would leave two years later.
NASA to use Starship
NASA plans to use Starship to transfer people from orbit around the moon to the moon’s surface besides future trips to Mars.
The business beat out other competitors, including Blue Origin, the rocket startup established by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and defense contractor Dynetics, to win a $2.9 billion contract for the mission. On paper, the lunar landing is set for 2025, but it is expected to be postponed. Aside from Starship, returning people to the moon will cause the Space Launch System. Another big rocket under construction by NASA is also behind schedule.
SpaceX would also need to refuel the propellant tanks of a starship while in orbit above Earth for the moon voyage. Every several hours, a sequence of starship tankers would launch, carrying fuel for the moon-bound rocket, Musk claimed.
Musk stated that NASA’s plans do not interfere with his larger ambitions.
He stated, “We’re going to manufacture a lot of ships, a lot of boosters.” “It’s rather simple to add legs to land on the moon.” And Musk was adamant that his massive rocket will work. “We’ll get it done,” he vowed, although there would almost certainly be bumps in the road.
Overall, Elon Musk is obsessed with taking a step forward on behalf of humankind and this might just bring many more discoveries in the way.
