SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s largest rocket, will get even bigger as the company continues to target future Mars missions.
SpaceX’s billionaire founder Elon Musk told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as high as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20 percent higher than the massive system currently aboard the Super Heavy rocket.
Moreover, Musk predicted that advances in reusability would cost around $3 million each launch; This is less than a third of the cost of a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch in 2004, taking inflation into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC; that’s roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)
“These are unthinkable numbers,” Musk said in an update to Starship released to the public on April 6, nearly a month after its third and final test flight to date. “No one thought this was possible, but we’re not breaking any physics to achieve this. So it’s within limits without breaking the physics. We can do this.”
Relating to: SpaceX fires up massive Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)
Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight the company’s progress toward its long-term plans to colonize Mars. There were actually three Starship launches last year, so progress has been made recently. However, Musk did not address the delays in the launch of Starship, which contributed to the postponement of the launch date of the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.
SpaceX was recently selected as the supplier for the Artemis 3 landing mission, which was planned for 2025. In January, NASA chose to postpone the launch date by another year, to 2026, due to a series of technical issues. In addition to Starship not being ready—the agency requires many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights—Artemis 3 has also been delayed by slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission’s Orion spacecraft, among other factors.
But Musk’s words to employees about Artemis focused on Starship’s future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks; both of which have yet to be proven in three test flights.
“This will be crucial to NASA’s Artemis program to return to the moon,” Musk said of these capabilities. He also envisions a “Lunar Base Alpha” that would include ships “specialized for traveling to and from the Moon,” meaning no heat shields or fins due to the lack of atmosphere.
Relating to: NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship’s 3rd test flight, but more study needed ahead of Artemis moon missions
Musk’s 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for Red Planet updates, focusing on how to ship massive amounts of cargo there for eventual colonists. He noted that this would require thousands of launches; For perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches, and about 80 percent of them have reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost).
SpaceX is by far the most active launch organization in the world, and Musk estimates the company will send roughly 90 percent of its orbital mass up this year, with China (the second-largest asset) sending up 6 percent.
Starship’s next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected in May, aims to land the first stage of the Super Heavy landing on “essentially a virtual tower” in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company completes this safely, it will consider using the launch site at Starbase in South Texas for future landings immediately after Flight 5. (Musk put Flight 4’s chance of success at 80% or 90%.)
Musk also wants to perform two controlled jumps of Starship’s upper stage before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. “We don’t want to rain debris down on Mexico or the United States,” he said. “My guess is probably next year is when we can use Starship again.”
RELATED STORIES:
— Dying SpaceX rocket creates spooky ‘dashed’ lines in new photos. What’s going on?
— SpaceX launches advanced weather satellite for the US Space Force (video)
— SpaceX rocket launches 11 satellites, including one for South Korea, on Bandwagon-1 codeshare flight (photos)
Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches this year, suggesting SpaceX will build six more spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company is due to be operational in 2025, which will further speed up production.
Future versions of Starship will include a “Starship 2” that will send a 100-ton payload into low Earth orbit and a 150-meter “Starship 3” for 200 or more tons. Musk emphasized that larger vehicles would mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for a journey to Mars one day.
Musk said these milestones will be “a largely success-oriented program.” His speech made no mention of the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each of the launches, or ongoing criticism of Starship’s environmental impact on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.
This impact could continue to grow, as Musk says sending hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is at its closest) would require about 10 launches per day to enable a long-term solution. As for the number of people going to Mars, he said it would be around one million people, a figure that was at least in line with the predictions he made in 2017. Musk also said he wants the deal to go ahead “within 20 years.” He said the same thing in 2011.