The Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), SpaceX’s future Massive rocket, Has a New Name
The Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), SpaceX’s future massive rocket, now has a new name. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX used his personal Twitter account to say that the transportation portion of the craft, presently called the Big Falcon Spaceship (BFS), will now be named Starship, while the booster portion (the part with the big f’n rockets) will be known as Super Heavy.
In September, the company officially unveiled their plans for the 387-foot Big Falcon Rocket. The company hopes that eventually, it will replace SpaceX’s existing Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon rockets. The spacecraft is presently being developed at the Port of Los Angeles, at an expected cost of $5 billion and will be able to take up to 100 tons of cargo or 100 passengers as far as Mars.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president, said the company would like to commence uncrewed launch tests of the new rocket in late 2019. If all goes according to plan, Musk thinks that this could be followed by an initial uncrewed flight to Mars in 2022 with a crewed flight happening as soon as 2024. A mission to fly around the moon with a private passenger on board is also slated for 2023. But, seeing as the Falcon Heavy took almost twice as long to complete than expected and that only five percent of SpaceX’s resources are presently being used on the Starship, it’s best to take these plans with a grain of salt.
For instance, one Twitter user pointed out, calling the BFS a starship is technically inaccurate unless the craft is sent on a mission to another star system. Musk then answered that tweet by saying the later versions of the Starship will be able to do so. However, he has previously reported that the craft is planned to be an interplanetary transport system that can travel anywhere in the Solar System.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104389/big-falcon-rocket-bfr-starship-spacex-elon-musk
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