Starship: The Spacecraft of the Future
Why SpaceX’s new technology is way ahead of its time
With a possible six different types, the reusable Starship rocket designed by SpaceX may be one of the most complicated pieces of machinery ever built, and a successor to the American Space Shuttle.
Starship is scheduled to make its first launch in 2023. There have already been a few successful test flights for Starhopper, an aircraft made to model the Starship. The Starhopper’s test on August 27, 2019 reached a maximum height of 150 meters (about 500 ft.), and autonomously returned to the ground without incident.
Granted, a 57 second test without getting too high up in the air doesn’t seem like much compared to a vehicle launching into space and entering an orbit around Earth, but the Starhopper is very critical. to Starship’s success. The Starhopper is a good way to test the takeoff and landing accuracy of Starship and to examine the effects that different conditions may have on the spacecraft.
What Can the Starship Do?
Designed with six different variants in mind, Starship can do practically anything one can think to do in space. The six different designs are as follows:
1. Crew
The Crew Starship will be designed to carry human crew members, as the name implies. SpaceX believes that once finished Starship will be able to carry a maximum of 100 people at one time.
2. Tanker
The Tanker Starship is purely meant for refueling other spacecraft already in orbit around the Earth. After it’s done refueling, it will simply do a de-orbit burn and fall back through the atmosphere to land on Earth.
3. Cargo
The purpose of the Cargo Starship is to deliver satellites and other goods to space. It will have a large hatch that opens to deploy a satellite and a docking port for docking with the International Space Station on a resupply mission. It will be able to hold about 1,000 cubic meters of cargo.
4. One-Way Starship
What will most likely be the least common out of all the designs, the One-Way Starship sticks to its name and travels just one way, making it the one of the only variants to not return to Earth. The One-Way Starship will be primarily used for injecting payloads to the outer solar system and it will not have all the fancy reentry technology that the other Starships will be equipped with.
5. Lunar Starship
The Lunar Starship may be in use as soon as 2024, for NASA’s Artemis Program. Similar to the One-Way Starship, the Lunar Starship is not designed to return to Earth, although it is meant to return to a low-Earth orbit if necessary.
6. Earth Starship
If successfully mass-produced, the Earth Starship may put some airlines out of business. SpaceX claims that the Earth version of the Starship will be able to carry passengers from any large metropolitan area to another in under an hour, and with most long-haul flights lasting for only 30 minutes. Compared to the 21 and a half hours it takes commercial airliners now to fly from London to Sydney, the Starship will be saving significant time in making the same journey in only 50 minutes.
The Materials of Starship
Rather unconventionally, Starship is planned to have a stainless steel exterior. While it does not look like most other rockets, stainless steel is much cheaper than the usual carbon-fiber that SpaceX was originally planning on.
Additionally, Elon Musk claimed that stainless steel endures better through higher temperatures than carbon composites.
How Reusable Is Starship?
The short answer is extremely reusable. Elon Musk says he plans to launch each individual Earth Starship 3 times per day. Musk also claims that in the future the SpaceX factory in Texas where Starship is being developed will be able to produce one Starship every 72 hours.
How It Launches
At the time of launch, the Starship will be attached to the Superheavy First Stage Booster. The Superheavy booster will provide the initial thrust for Starship to get into the air. After about 2 minutes, the booster will fall back to the ground and autonomously land on the launch platform.
Once the first stage detaches, Starship will rely on its powerful Raptor engines to get into a parking orbit around the Earth, from which it can perform its routine functions such as deploying satellites or heading towards the Moon, Mars, or somewhere beyond.
Conclusion
If SpaceX are able to follow up on their claims than Starship will truly be a remarkable advancement in space travel and utility. Only the American Space Shuttle would even be close to competing with its reusability and prowess, and even then Starship would still be able to do things the Space Shuttle never could.
