Aug 19, 2021
SpaceX’s 230-foot-tall rocket spotted from space in the satellite photo
SpaceX’s reusable rocket, Starship with super heavy boosters is big even from space.
The 230-foot-tall rocket stands tall and big as Maxar Technologies’ WorldView-3 satellite snapped a great shot of SpaceX’s “Starbase” facility in South Texas, where the company is building and testing its Starship deep-space transportation system.
The Starship system is a fully reusable, two-stage-to-orbit super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX and as of August 2021, it is the world’s tallest and most powerful rocket ever built, with more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V. The system consists of a booster stage named Super Heavy and a second stage, also called “Starship“
SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars, and other distant destinations.
The WorldView-3 photo captures two different Super Heavy vehicles: Booster 3, which is resting on a suborbital launch pad near the left edge of the picture, and Booster 4, which is perched on an orbital launch mount at the right. Both vehicles cast long shadows, towering over the Gulf Coast landscape and most of Starbase’s structures.
The 29-engine Booster 4, however, is being prepped for the Starship program’s first-ever orbital test flight.
On August 6, the engineers stacked the Starship prototype SN20 (“Serial №20”) atop Booster 4, assembling the tallest rocket in all of history following the hoisting of the giant vehicle on August 5 for orbital launch.
While it is still unclear about the launch of Booster 4 and SN20, but according to SpaceX Chief Elon Musk, the vehicle has “pending regulatory approval.” and is ready to go off in few weeks.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is setting new records in the space industry despite being criticized by many space veterans for allowing space exploration available for everyone and we hope to see some exciting development in the upcoming years.
Originally published at https://yellowtelegraph.com on August 20, 2021.
