SpaceX’s Starship giant rocket may be put into service in 2025.
400 feet (122 meters) high starship The largest and most powerful rocket system ever built, it is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Space Exploration Technologies Corporation It is believed that this combination of power and efficiency is the key breakthrough that will enable humans to achieve a variety of space flight feats – including solving Marsthe long-held dream of the company’s founder and CEO Musk.
That vision will likely become clearer over the next 12 months or so, as Starship appears poised to take a major leap forward in 2025.
Improve flight rate
To date, Starship has launched six times—two in 2023, Four times in 2024.
The vehicle has made great progress on these test flights, all of which took off from SpaceX’s Starbase base in South Texas. For example, on the three most recent Starships, two Starship components—the Super Heavy booster and the 165-foot (50 m)-tall upper-stage spacecraft (called a “Starship” or simply a “ship”)—are moving toward survived the journey. Earth’s atmosphere All in one piece.
Related: What’s next for SpaceX’s Starship after its sixth successful test flight?
on flight 5Launched on October 13, Starbase’s launch tower will return the Super Heavy rocket from the sky Use its “chopstick” armsdemonstrating the recovery strategy SpaceX plans to employ during the two Starship stages of the mission.
Such tower captures may become a relatively common sight by 2025. approve.
draft environmental assessment Released by the FAA in November Not only were 25 Starships approved for launch from Starbase, but 50 tower launches were approved for launch from the site – 25 Super Heavy and 25 Starships. SpaceX also already has FAA grants Starship Flight 7 launch licensethis can happen from early to mid-January.
For SpaceX, such a surge would be huge, as the company’s rocket development strategy centers on flying, iterating, and then flying again. There’s no reason to think this goal is out of reach; after all, the company has launched more than 130 orbital missions in 2024, the vast majority of which will be workhorses Falcon 9 Rocket.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that their timeline is unprecedented,” Ehud Behar, an astrophysicist and professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, told Space.com.
Twenty-five Starship flights per year is still far from the goal; the company plans to continue raising rates in 2026 and beyond.
“Elon will say next year he wants us to fly 25 missions a year and 100 missions in the next few years,” Kathy Lueders, SpaceX’s general manager of starbase operations, said during the Mexican Space Agency’s national congress in November. “Space Activities Conference,” According to Gizmodo. “He told me, ‘Casey, I’d love to launch a few times a day.'”
Not all of these future missions will fly from Starbase: SpaceX also plans Starship launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center In Florida, where the company has launched Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Rocket.
Manned flights are coming
SpaceX already has a number of customers lined up for Starship, chief among them NASA, which chose the giant rocket as its first crewed lander. artemis project lunar exploration.
If all goes according to plan, Starship’s superior will carry NASA astronauts near the moon’s south pole artemis 3 The mission is currently expected to launch in mid-2027.
The plan has been postponed several times recent Due to NASA’s problem Orion Crew compartment. (The Artemis 3 program calls for astronauts to leave Earth aboard the Orion spacecraft, using NASA’s space launch system Rocket. In lunar orbit, Orion will encounter the modified Starship Upper Stage, which will carry astronauts to the lunar surface.
Behar said it’s unclear whether Artemis 3 will be ready to fly in 2027, given NASA’s budget constraints and the overall difficulty of manned missions, especially when they involve entirely new space systems. . (How many successful unmanned starship flights does NASA want to see before putting astronauts on board?)
But he believes that by then, Starship will be ready to play a more prosaic role in spaceflight.
“I think Starship seems to be on the right track as a satellite launcher,” Behar said. “I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t proceed as planned.”
Related: NASA’s Artemis Program: Everything you need to know
Bigger rockets, bigger needs?
According to SpaceX, Starship will become larger and more powerful over time.
“Through some planned upgrades, the starship will have three times the thrust [at liftoff] of Saturn V 10,000 metric tons of thrust, with the added benefit of being completely reusable,” Jessica Anderson, SpaceX manufacturing engineering manager, said during the webcast Starship’s sixth test flightoccurred on November 19th.
“Starship 2 will be able to put more than 100 tons of cargo into orbit, and Starship 3 will be able to put more than 200 tons of cargo into orbit,” she added. “The mass that each rocket is capable of launching is extremely important for launching on Mars. Creating a self-sufficient city is crucial.”
Musk said that because Starship is fully reusable, the vehicle will ultimately be able to provide such power for only $2 million to $3 million per flight. That would be dirt cheap; SpaceX currently sells Falcon 9 missions for about $67 million.
These expected numbers of starships may be tailored for Mars settlement, but the giant rocket may also end up performing many missions closer to home. SpaceX plans to complete assembly Starlink Behar said various customers may also find ways to take advantage of the vehicles using Starship’s broadband mega-constellation.
“I think we’ve learned the lesson that if the technology is developed and affordable, it has a use,” he said.
“People forget that space is a place; it’s not really a thing,” Behar added. “You can do a lot of things in space, from developing new materials to developing drugs. Right now, the barrier to entry to get there is very expensive.”