Starship / Superheavy

Quick Facts About Starship.

- Type : Fully reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle.

- Origin : United states.

- Manufacturer: SpaceX.

- In service : Currently in development.

- Mass : 5,000 t (11,000,000 lb), estimate incl. max. payload.

- Length/Height : 121 m (390 ft).

- Diameter : 9 m (30 ft).

- Payload to LEO : 100–150 t (220,000–330,000 lb).

- Payload to GTO : 21 t (46,000 lb) or 100 t (220,000 lb) with refueling.

- Payload to the Moon : 100 t- 200 t with refueling.

- Payload to Mars : 100 t -150 t with refueling.

- Propellant: Subcooled CH4 / LOX.

- Engines: First stage(Super Heavy): 29–32 Raptor engines with thrust of 74 MN (7,500 tf; 17,000,000 lbf). Upper stage (Starship) : 6 Raptor engines with thrust of 4 MN (1,400 tf; 3,100,000 lbf).

Starship is a two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle and spacecraft under development by SpaceX. It is currently the tallest and most powerful space launch vehicle to have flown. Starship is intended to be fully reusable, enabling the vehicle to be recovered after a mission and reused.

The Starship space vehicle is designed to supplant SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, build SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, and serve crewed spaceflight. SpaceX plans to use Starship vehicles as tankers, refueling other Starships to allow missions to geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A lunar lander variant of Starship is to land astronauts on the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program. Starship is ultimately meant to enable SpaceX's ambition of colonizing Mars.

Starship is made up of a booster and the Starship spacecraft. The booster and spacecraft are both powered by clusters of Raptor rocket engines, which burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The vehicle is constructed primarily of stainless steel, a material chosen as an alternative to a series of prior designs. The Starship spacecraft is protected during atmospheric reentry by its thermal protection system, and, like the booster, lands vertically by decelerating using its main rocket engines.

The first flight test of the full Starship system took place on 20 April 2023, lifting-off with three engines out and ending four minutes after launch due to a loss of control, resulting in the destruction of the launch vehicle. The second flight test of the vehicle took place on 18 November 2023, achieving stage separation with the Super Heavy booster exploding roughly 30 seconds later following multiple engine failures during its boostback burn. The upper stage was lost nearly eight minutes after launch prior to reaching orbit. During its third test flight on March 14, 2024, Starship successfully completed a full-duration second stage burn, reaching the intended orbital velocities for the first time, but broke up during re-entry in the atmosphere.