The Starship Program: Taking life Multi-planetary
Elon Musk founded SpaceX back in 2002 with the ultimate goal to make life multi-planetary. Since then, SpaceX has been preparing themselves to make this a reality.
For the last nineteen years, SpaceX has grown like none other in this industry. But the critics were skeptical about the whole idea of colonizing Mars. They kept questioning the point of wasting resources on such bizarre ideas, rather than focusing on the problems on Earth. At an international conference in Mexico in 2016, Elon Musk answered this long sought critique question.
“History is going to bifurcate into two directions. One path is to stay on Earth forever and there will be some eventual extinction event and we die. The other is to be a spacefaring civilization and become a multi-planetary civilization”.
Starship is the latest addition to this idea.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Starship is currently a prototype. It is being tested and made in a facility named Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. This facility now creates one starship every 72 hours. The part that is being tested now is the spacecraft that will carry the crew and payload.
Spacecraft, along with the booster rocket named Super Heavy comprises the Starship program. The collective height will be around 120m (394ft). The Super Heavy will take the spacecraft to the orbit and return to Earth by landing on a probe that will catch the rocket, rather than vertical landing. The spacecraft, which also lands vertically, will continue its journey to the destination. What makes it unique is that it is totally reusable and can be used for transport on Earth. The company intends to go from Sydney to Singapore in 31 minutes. Shorter distances may not even require the booster. But the real focus of Starship is to take humans into other planets. Currently NASA has awarded SpaceX to use Starship as the moon lander for its Artemis mission to send men and women to the Moon.
The main advantage of Starship is that it can launch a payload of about 100T to space which is vital in a long distance journey like a trip to Mars.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Starship is different from its predecessors for a variety of reasons, but the most remarkable feature is its stainless steel frame.
Even a small change in the weight of the spacecraft can adversely affect its overall performance, and steel is many times heavier than the traditionally used carbon fiber. Even then, SpaceX uses shining steel for its framework because of its cost of production. Carbon fiber costs about 135 USD per kg, in addition to which 35% of the material must be scrapped at the time of construction- this makes the cost about 200 USD. In contrast, steel costs about 3 USD per kg. Since fleets of Starship are required for creating a colony on Mars, cost becomes a huge factor.
Further, stainless steel frames resists high temperatures and can be used as rugged ceramic sheets for maximum heating areas. Carbon fiber can take about 300 degrees Fahrenheit for steady state operating temperatures. Steel, however, can take about 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Since Starship is meant for interplanetary travel, it has to travel at speeds as high as 13,000 miles/hour and also experience temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Entry into Mars by an object as heavy as Starship is not very easy. In order to slow down in its atmosphere, it should keep a heavy angle which will create a strong drag. This will result in an enormous amount of heat. Since it is made of steel, it requires less number of heat shield tiles.
The next key feature of Starship is its raptor engines. The raptor engine is the most sophisticated engineering in SpaceX. This state of the art engine reimagined the entire rocket industry. It uses a full flow combustion cycle that was only previously used as a theory. Raptor is the first engine to use it. It uses both oxidizer rich and fuel rich pre-burner. Usually only either one of the two is used in engines. This way, the engine has more control over the fuel as well as the oxidizer which provides a longer engine life and higher reliability. This makes it more efficient in terms of reusability. The current version of raptor can be used for 25 flights which would otherwise require 25 different engines.
The fuel which is used for a raptor engine is cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Rocket propellent (RP1) is usually used in rockets. The reason methane is used as fuel is due to the geological landscape of Mars . The probes in Mars have discovered huge amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere and a high amount of frozen water on the surface. In the future, an advanced system could synthesize methane from this and use it for fuel.
LAUNCHES
The upper stage of the prototype was launched into the air nine times, spanning from 3rd of April, 2019 to 5th of May, 2021.
The first one launched was called Starhopper, which was lifted 1m above the ground. The first suborbital test was conducted on the 4th of August, 2020 with the Starship SN6 single raptor engine. It flew 150 m above the ground. SN8 was tested on 3rd December. It was lifted to a distance of 12.5 km, ascended, performed the skydive dip maneuver, relit the engines, and performed the belly flip maneuver. But due to insufficient deceleration, it crash landed.
The first fully successful suborbital test flight was the test of SN15 on May 5th, 2021. This prototype got lots of upgrades as compared to previous models. SN15 was launched in low level clouds and achieved successful soft landing. It flew to a distance of about 10 km above the ground.
SpaceX plans the next flight to be an orbital flight. SN20 and Super Heavy BN3 are currently under construction for an estimated launch by mid July.
FUTURE PLANS
Recently, Starship was picked as the moon lander for Nasa’s Artemis mission to land on the Surface of the Moon. SpaceX also promised to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, along with 8 others, to orbit around the moon in 2023. This mission is named the ‘Dear Moon’ mission.
Elon Musk is also planning for the Mission to Mars in 2024.
We can hope that these missions are a huge success and take the legacy of mankind beyond our planet.
To see the recap of the latest launch of Starship SN15, check out the link given below:
SpaceX Starship SN15 flight test recap: https://youtu.be/7CZTLogln34
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