Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to take a daring leap, perhaps as early as April 16, with an around-the-world test flight of its mammoth Starship - the biggest and mightiest rocket ever built. Its lofty goals are to carry people eventually to the Moon and Mars. The 400-foot rocket will be launched from Boca Chica Beach in south Texas, about 20 miles from Brownsville. It will be the first launch with Starship's two sections together. The first-stage rocket booster, called "Super Heavy," will soar for the first time. For this demo, SpaceX won’t attempt any landings of the rocket or spacecraft. Everything will fall into the Gulf of Mexico after about a 90-minute flight hoping to reach orbit. “I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement,” Musk said in March at a Morgan Stanley conference. Starship has 33 main engines and 16.7M pounds of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January - good enough to reach orbit, Musk noted. Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars. (The AP 04/15/23) What to know about 1st test flight of SpaceX's big Starship - MarketBeat
Here’s the rundown on Starship’s debut:
Starship has 33 main engines and 16.7M pounds of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January - good enough to reach orbit, Musk noted. Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars.
The six-engine spacecraft accounts for 164 feet (50 meters) of its height. Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlinks for internet service, before strapping anyone in. Starship easily eclipses NASA’s moon rockets — the Saturn V from the bygone Apollo era and the Space Launch System from the Artemis program that logged its first lunar trip late last year. It also outflanks the former Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket, which never made it past a minute into flight, exploding with no one aboard.
GAME PLAN
The test flight will last 1 1/2 hours, and fall short of a full orbit of Earth. If Starship reaches the three-minute mark after launch, the booster will be commanded to separate and fall into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans before ditching near Hawaii. Starship is designed to be fully reusable but nothing will be saved from the test flight. Harvard astrophysicist and spacecraft tracker Jonathan McDowell will be more excited whenever Starship actually lands and returns intact from orbit. It will be "a profound development in spaceflight if and when Starship is debugged and operational,” he said.
LAUNCH PAD
Starship will take off from a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas near Boca Chica Beach. It's just below South Padre Island, and about 20 miles from Brownsville. Down the road from the launch pad is the complex where SpaceX has been developing and building Starship prototypes for the past several years. The complex, called Starbase, has more than 1,800 employees, who live in Brownsville or elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley. The Texas launch pad is equipped with giant robotic arms — called chopsticks — to eventually grab a returning booster as it lands. SpaceX is retooling one of its two Florida launch pads to accommodate Starships down the road. Florida is where SpaceX's Falcon rockets blast off with crew, space station cargo and satellites for NASA and other customers.
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