Oct 01, 2019 12:00:00

What kind of rocket is SpaceX's new Starship that aims to carry more than 100 people to the moon and Mars?

SpaceX , led by CEO Elon Musk ,

unveiled a new Starship prototype on September 28, 2019. SpaceX explains on the Starship official website what kind of rocket the next-generation spacecraft will be in operation as early as 2023.

Starship | SpaceX
https://www.spacex.com/starship

Starship is a two-stage rocket consisting of “ Starship ”, a manned spacecraft, and “ Super Heavy ”, a booster. The spaceship Starship is about 9m in diameter, 50m in height, and has a loading capacity of over 100 tons. SpaceX says, “Starship acts as a large, long-term spacecraft that can carry passengers and cargo between Earth orbits, planetary destinations, and destinations on Earth.”

In addition, the spaceship Starship is equipped with six raptor engines, and it can obtain a thrust of 1200 tons. The surface is covered with silvery stainless steel and has a futuristic design.

The booster part Super Heavy is 9m in diameter and 68m in height. 37 raptor engines are installed, the maximum take-off weight is about 3300 tons, and the thrust is 72 meganewtons. The entire surface of Super Heavy is covered with stainless steel.

In addition, Super Heavy has six legs, and after being cut off, it is a “reusable rocket” that returns to the launch site without being discarded into space. The function that Super Heavy returns to the ground automatically was tested with the prototype 'Starhopper', and it successfully landed from 150m above the ground in August 2019.

SpaceX's spaceship `` Starhopper '' turned over from the previous test that became a fireman, successfully flying-GIGAZINE

A total of 43 Raptor engines on Starship and Super Heavy are full-flow, two-stage combustion rocket engines powered by low-temperature methane and liquid oxygen. Low-temperature methane was used because of the possibility of local fuel procurement on Mars.

The raptor engine has a diameter of 1.3m, a height of 3.1m, and a thrust of about 2 meganewtons. The Marlin engine is used in the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, but the raptor engine will finally be adopted from Starship. The following movie shows a raptor engine combustion experiment.

Raptor is a full-flow, staged combustion rocket engine powered by cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen pic.twitter.com/7JCvK4Gm6b
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 29, 2019

You can see how the Starship launches by watching the following movie.

Starship Launch Animation | South Texas-YouTube

Starship launched from the ground ...

Separated from super heavy in space.

The separated Super Heavy returns to Earth using landing fuel ...

Land at the launch point.

On the other hand, the spaceship Starship cannot carry a large amount of fuel because it carries people and cargo. You can refuel by docking with the International Space Station. However, in the case of Starship, you can transfer fuel by docking between Starships.

Starship docks the bottoms and transfers fuel. SpaceX is planning a plan for efficient long-distance flight by sending a star ship for refueling from the lunar base and the International Space Station.

In addition, Starship is considered not only for commercial space travel but also for various missions. For example, the following shows how the onboard satellite is released into orbit.