SpaceX is preparing to launch its massive Starship rocket into orbit, debuting CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious plan to build an eventual independent human settlement on Mars.
Musk said SpaceX is ready to launch the Starship from its facilities in Boca Chica, Texas — an area the company calls “Starbase” — once it receives a launch permit from the Federal Aviation Administration.
As with any first launch, a small flaw in a missile’s complex hardware or software engineering could easily make everything go wrong.
In an interview at the Morgan Stanley conference on March 7, Musk said the rocket has a 1 in 2 chance of not reaching orbit.
“I’m not saying it will orbit, but I guarantee excitement,” he said, adding, “It won’t be boring!”
“I think it’s got, I don’t know, about a 50% chance of getting into orbit,” Musk said, adding that SpaceX is building multiple vehicle rockets and overall, there’s an 80% chance that one will reach orbit this year.
If the history of the Starship’s suborbital test flights tells us anything, it’s that a failure to reach orbit could mean the rocket explodes.
Starship has exploded before, but its future could be bright
If successful, the launch would prove to be the world’s first fully reusable orbital rocket, paving the way for SpaceX to revolutionize the orbital economy.
Starship and its 230-foot booster, Super Heavy, are both designed to drop themselves to the ground to fly again another day.
This is a big money-saving measure, since SpaceX wouldn’t have to build a new upper stage for every rocket launch. The Starship is also designed to carry giant payloads into space, up to 250 metric tons of payload to orbit, up to 150 metric tons if the rocket is reused, according to the SpaceX website.
This will increase efficiency to make it cheaper to send satellites, spacecraft, cargo and people to Earth’s orbit and beyond, to the Moon and Mars.
The Starship’s promise of reusability and sheer flight power made it attractive to NASA, which chose the vehicle to land its astronauts on the moon again for the first time since 1972. The agency aims to achieve this historic lunar landing in the mid-2020s.
First, though, the Starship has to orbit Earth and return safely. Two years ago, SpaceX completed a series of test flights, launching spacecraft models six miles into the air above Boca Chica.
The first four exploded, with only one sticking in the landing before exploding.
Finally, the Starship Prototype V soared 33,000 feet in the air, cut its engines to descend back toward Earth, then re-ignited it just in time to flip itself upright and lower gently onto the landing pad.
The spacecraft has not flown since. Its first attempt to fly into orbit will be its biggest test yet.
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