What is the SpaceX Starship?


Starship is a fully-reusable, super-heavy-lift launch vehicle being developed by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. It is the tallest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built. Starship is a two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle, consisting of the Super Heavy booster stage and the Starship second stage or spacecraft. The spacecraft is planned to have four main variants: cargo, crew, propellant tanker, and lunar lander.


Both Starship rocket stages are designed for rapid reuse after a vertical landing, use liquid oxygen plus liquid methane for propellant, and are powered by Raptor engines. SpaceX intends that Starship will be able to deliver 100 t (220,000 lb) to low Earth orbit; once in orbit, the spacecraft can be refueled by Starship tankers to allow transit to higher orbits or other destinations. The spacecraft can then either enter the planet's atmosphere and use its engines to land retropropulsively, or be left in outer space to serve as a lunar lander or a propellant depot.


As of July 2022, two Starship launch sites (Starbase in Texas and Kennedy Space Center in Florida) and two offshore platforms are under construction. They will be the starting point for many planned space missions, made possible due to the rocket's reduced launch cost and increased launch frequency. In the short term, Starship will deploy satellites and space probes, serve commercial astronauts, and explore the Moon via the Artemis program. In the long term, the rocket may aid SpaceX's ambition of colonizing Mars and enable fast travel between Earth's spaceports.


SpaceX had envisioned a large-capacity launch vehicle concept since as early as 2005. Over the next dozen years, the vehicle's design and construction techniques were refined, specifying the methane fuel in 2012 and stainless-steel construction in 2019. Starship's development program adopted an iterative and incremental methodology, meaning frequent prototype construction, testing, and refinement. As of July 2022, the program has achieved important milestones, such as operating the Raptor engine in vehicles (Starhopper) and demonstrating the use of stabilizing flaps (Starship SN8–SN15). A full-scale orbital test flight is expected to take place in 2022.