The founding spirit of Elon Musk’s private space company, SpaceX, is to make life more planetary. This is due in part to threats, such as asteroid impacts to wipe out humans. Musk has often talked about his dream of building a city on Mars and making this dream come true requires a vehicle capable of accomplishing this task. For this purpose, Musk has developed Starship, a space rocket. Let us know more about it:
What is Starship?
Starship, launched by Elon Musk under his company SpaceX, is a combined rocket spaceship that enables transporting of more than 100 people to the Red planet in one single go. The system is designed to be completely reusable, which means that the main components of the hardware will not be disposed of at sea or burned like other launch systems, but rather will be recovered from space. They can then be retrofitted and flown again, reducing the cost of the entire company.
What is the structure of Starship ?
During the launch of Starship, it will be installed on a rocket called the Super Heavy. The combined system will have a height of 120 m (394 ft). As has been revealed, the stainless steel plane with nose cone and landing fins are similar to rockets from the golden age of science fiction. Towards the rear, which is approximately 50 meters long, there are six most efficient Raptor Engines placed by SpaceX, which the company built over a period of ten years. The engine design further contributes towards reducing propellent waste and exhibits the pressure of combustible emissions.
In the middle of the vehicle are the propellant tank which delivers liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (O2) to the Raptors. The choice of fuel is unusual for a rocket engine, but methane can produce a lot of thrust and given Musk’s layout on Mars, the use of Methane is a wise choice. The SpaceX founder said a chemical process called the Sabatier reaction can be used to synthesize CH4 from Martian groundwater and carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Moreover, using martian resources to refuel interstellar spacecraft returning to Earth will bring a certain degree of self-reliance, making travel more feasible and profitable. The front of the spacecraft, sometimes referred to as the upper stage, is a huge payload bay capable of carrying large loads or people to destinations in deep space.
Talking more about the rocket and it’s structure is that it is placed at 70 meters (230 feet) long, the superheavy atmosphere is filled with 3,400 tons (6.8 million pounds) of cryogenic (frozen) methyl space. Furthermore, it will be powered by approximately 32 Raptor engines and should achieve 70 Meganewtons (16 million pounds) of maximum thrust, upon which it will be able to lift a payload of at least 100 tons (possibly up to 150 tons) to lower the Earth’s orbit. This will make the Super Heavy more powerful than the huge Saturn V launchers used for the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
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How will Starship be put to use?
Starship is going to be primarily used for long haul trips targeted to Mars, which might approximately take nine months for a one-way trip. Starship will also participate in NASA’s Artemis project, which has a goal of establishing long term human presence on the moon. In April 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth US $ 2.89 billion to develop Starship into a landing vehicle capable of sending astronauts to the surface of the moon in the next ten years. The flight-adapted version of Artemis will not have the heat shield and fins needed to return to Earth but rather, the spacecraft’s manned landing system will remain in space after its first launch from Earth and will be used for multiple trips between lunar orbit and the lunar surface.
When will Starship fly?
Starship is scheduled to be launched on Super Heavy for its first ever orbital test flight towards the end of 2021. Moreover, Musk has also planned an excursion on the moon with the Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa in 2023. Starship has also targeted a mission for 2024 where it will fly to the moon from lunar orbit as a part of the Artemis-III mission campaigned by NASA.
