SpaceX Starship

In News: 

SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s biggest rocket, exploded during its first test-flight to space.

About Starship

• SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship.
  • Super Heavy rocket:  It is the first stage, or booster, of the Starship launch system.
    • Powered by 33 Raptor engines using sub-cooled liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX).
    • The Raptor engine is a reusable methane-oxygen staged-combustion engine that powers the Starship system
    • ·Super Heavy is fully reusable and will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere to land back at the launch site.
  • Starship spacecraft: It is the second stage of the Starship system.
    • It is also capable of point-to-point transport on Earth, enabling travel to anywhere in the world in one hour or less.
• It is a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
• It is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tons fully reusable and 250 metric tons expendable.

Objectives 

• the goal is to make Starship reusable and bring down the price to a few million dollars per flight.
• The eventual objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and put humans on the “path to being a multi-planet civilization

Upcoming Mission 

• The U.S. space agency NASA has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 — a mission known as Artemis III — for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

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