The Starship is Elon Musk's super-heavy rocket that he hopes will take humans to Mars before the end of this decade. It will also transport NASA astronauts to the moon after SpaceX won a bid to develop a human lander for the Artemis mission in addition to the Space Launch System (SLS). Several tests have been taking place in Boca Chica, Texas, as part of the development of the ambitious rocket. While it isn't the first time Musk has talked about a first orbital flight, it wasn't until recently that a more concrete timeline began to materialize.
Following the trademark of all SpaceX rockets, the Starship will be fully-reusable. Its unique design makes it the world's most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, and it will have the ability to carry more than 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit. The Starship system consists of a Super Heavy booster and a 165-foot-tall upper-stage spacecraft called Starship. It stands at 394 ft tall — 31 ft more than the legendary Saturn V— and 73 ft more than NASA's SLS rocket. The Super Heavy booster alone is powered by thirty-three new generation Raptor engines, while other SpaceX rockets such as the Falcon 9 use Merlin engines.
Super Heavy Prototypes have been tested, and many of these tryouts have been unsuccessful. The latest failed attempt was the Booster 7, resulting in a massive fireball during a test on July 11. The incidents so far had made it unclear when the Starship was going to be ready for the next step, which is the long-expected first orbital flight test. On Aug. 2, Musk responded to a tweet saying, "A *successful* orbital flight is probably between 1 and 12 months from now." The broad timeline sets new high expectations considering that Booster 7 continues to face challenges.
Even if a successful orbital flight occurred as early as September, it would still come after NASA's SLS Artemis I launch. Although both NASA and SpaceX are commercial partners, there has been an implicit race between the two super-heavy rockets to see which one would successfully go orbital first. The SLS is scheduled to launch no earlier than Aug. 29 on its first uncrewed test flight to Lunar orbit. Starship spacecraft's prototype Ship 24 has already performed successful high-altitude tests and been rolled to the launch pad at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas.
Making the repairs for Booster 7 might reduce the broadness of the announced timeline. It is also speculated that Musk could decide to fast-track the new prototype Booster 8. There are many moving parts that could fall into place within the next month, which follows SpaceX's tradition of testing and fixing as they go. If Musk's optimism pays off, maybe the second half of this year will be marked by launching two of the biggest rockets ever built.
Source: Elon Musk/Twitter
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