SpaceX Starship: Difference between revisions
Reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle
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| Function | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | |
| Country of origin | |
| Project cost | at least US$5 billion[a][1] |
| Height | 121 m (397 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Mass | 5,000 t (11,000,000 lb) |
| Mass | Reusable: 100–150 t (220,000–331,000 lb) Expendable: Up to 250 t (551,000 lb) |
| Volume | 1,000 m3 (35,000 cu ft) |
| Derivative work | Starship HLS |
| Comparable | |
| Status | In development |
| Launch sites | SpaceX Starbase Kennedy Space Center, LC-39A (planned) |
| Total launches | 2 |
| Success(es) | 0 |
| Failure(s) | 2 (IFT-1, IFT-2) |
| First flight | 20 April 2023 |
| Height | 71 m (233 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Empty mass | 200 t (441,000 lb) |
| Gross mass | 3,600 t (7,937,000 lb) |
| Propellant mass | 3,400 t (7,496,000 lb) |
| Powered by | 33 Raptor engines |
| Maximum thrust | 7,590 tf (74,400 kN; 16,700,000 lbf) |
| Specific impulse | 327 s (3.21 km/s) (sea-level) |
| Propellant | Liquid oxygen / Methane |
| Height | 50 m (160 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Empty mass | ~100 t (220,000 lb)[2] |
| Gross mass | 1,300 t (2,866,000 lb)[b] |
| Propellant mass | 1,200 t (2,646,000 lb) |
| Powered by | 3 Raptor engines 3 Raptor vacuum engines |
| Maximum thrust | 1,500 tf (14,700 kN; 3,310,000 lbf) |
| Specific impulse | 327 s (3.21 km/s) (sea-level) 380 s (3.7 km/s) (vacuum) |
| Propellant | Liquid oxygen / Methane |
Starship is a two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX. It is the heaviest, tallest and most powerful space launch vehicle to have flown into space.[c] 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, expand SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, and launch crews to both low Earth orbit and Mars. 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 primarily meant to enable SpaceX’s ambition of facilitating the colonizing Mars.
Starship consists of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. The booster and spacecraft are both powered by Raptor 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 is designed to use its engines to slow itself down before it is caught by a pair of mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. The Starship spacecraft is protected during atmospheric reentry by its thermal protection system, using a ‘belly flop’ maneuver 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.[3] The first flight test of the full Starship system took place on 20 April 2023, successfully lifting off, but ended four minutes after launch with the destruction of the test vehicle. The second flight test of the vehicle took place on 18 November 2023, successfully achieving stage separation, but the Super Heavy booster exploded seconds into firing its engines for its boostback burn, while the upper stage was lost nearly eight minutes after launch, shortly before reaching orbital speeds.[4]
Description
When stacked and fully fueled, Starship has a mass of approximately 5,000 t (11,000,000 lb),[d] a diameter of 9 m (30 ft)[6] and a height of 121 m (397 ft).[7] The rocket has been designed with the goal of being fully reusable to reduce launch costs.[8] In its fully reusable configuration Starship is designed to carry 150 t (330,000 lb) to low Earth orbit, while the expended configuration is projected to have a payload capacity of 250 t (550,000 lb).[9]
The rocket consists of the Super Heavy first-stage or booster, and the Starship second-stage or spacecraft,[10] powered by the Raptor and Raptor Vacuum engines.[11] The bodies of both rocket stages are made from stainless steel as opposed to carbon fiber as the latter is far more expensive and less durable.[12]
The manufacturing process starts with rolls of steel, which are unrolled, cut, and welded along the cut edge to create a cylinder of 9 m (30 ft) in diameter, 2 m (7 ft) in height, and 4 mm (0.16 in) thick, and around 1,600 kg (4,000 lb) in mass.[13] These cylinders, along with the nose cones, are stacked and welded along their edges to form the outer layer of the rocket.[13] Inside, the methane and oxygen tanks are separated by the robot-made domes.[13]
In order to compete with SpaceX and close their technological gap with the company, CASC and other aerospace actors in China have been working on their own version of Starship – the Long March 9 superheavy rocket, which is also designed to be fully reusable.[14][15] Starship’s reusability and stainless-steel construction…