SPACE X BIG STAR SHIP

1. Context 

2. Key points

• Jutting almost 400 feet (120 meters) into the South Texas sky, Starship could blast off as early as Monday, with no one aboard. It will be the first launch with Starship's two sections together. 
• Early versions of the sci-fi-looking upper stage rocketed several miles into the stratosphere a few years back, crashing four times before finally landing upright in 2021.
• The towering first-stage rocket booster, dubbed Super Heavy, will soar for the first time.
• Space X won't attempt any landings of the rocket or spacecraft for this demo. Everything will fall into the sea.

Image Source: BBC

3. Supersize rocket

• The stainless steel Starship has 33 main engines and 16.7 million pounds of thrust.
• All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January good enough to reach orbit.
• Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars.
• The six-engine spacecraft accounts for 164 feet (50 meters) in its height.
• Before strapping anyone in, Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlinks for internet service.
• Starship easily eclipses NASA's moon rockets the Saturn V from the bygone Apollo era and the Space Launch System from the Artemis program logged its first lunar trip late last year.
• It also outflanks the former Soviet Union's N1 moon rocket, which never made it past a minute into the flight, exploding with no one aboard.
• The test flight will last 1 1/2 hours and fall short of a full orbit of Earth.
• If Starship reaches the three-minute mark after launch, the booster will be commanded to separate and fall into the Gulf of Mexico.
• The spacecraft would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans before ditching near Hawaii.
• Starship is designed to be fully reusable but nothing will be saved from the test flight.

4. Launchpad

• Starship will take off from a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas near Boca Chica Beach.
• It is just below South Padre Island and about 20 miles from Brownville.
• Down the road from the launch pad is the complex where SpaceX has been developing Starship prototypes for the past several years.
• The complex, called Starbase, has more than 1, 800 employees living in Brownsville or elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley.
• The Texas launch pad is equipped with giant robotic arms called chopsticks to eventually grab a returning booster as it lands.
• SpaceX is retooling one of its two Florida launch pads to accommodate Starships down the road.
• Florida is where SpaceX's Falcon rockets blast off with crew, space station cargo and satellites for NASA and other customers.

5. Customers

• With Starship, the California-based Space X is focusing on the moon for now, with a $3 billion NASA contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface as early as 2025, using the upper-stage spacecraft.
• It will be the first moon landing by astronauts in more than 50 years.
• The moonwalkers will leave Earth via NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket and then transfer to Starship in lunar orbit for the descent to the surface and then back to Orion.
• To reach the moon and beyond, Starship will first need to refuel in low-Earth orbit.
• Space X envisions an orbiting depot with window-less Starships as tankers.  But Starship is not just for NASA.
• A private crew will be the first to fly Starship, orbiting Earth. Two private flights to the moon would follow no landings, just fly around.

6. Other players

• There are other new rockets on the horizon. Jeff Bezos Blue Origin is readying the New Glenn rocket for its orbital debut from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the next year or so.
• Named after the first American to orbit the world, John Gleen, the rocket towers over the company's current New Shepard rocket, named for Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard's 1961 suborbital hop.
• NASA will use New Gleen to send a pair of spacecraft to Mars in 2024.
• United Launch Alliance expects its new Vulcan rocket to make its inaugural launch later this year, hoisting a private lunar lander to the moon at NASA's behest.
• Europe's Arianespace is close to launching its new, upgraded Ariane 6 rocket from French Guiana in South America.
• And NASA's Space Launch System moon rockets that will carry astronauts will morph into ever bigger versions.