SpaceX Starship

Starship

Starship prototype in launch configuration: Starship spacecraft sits on top of Super Heavy.
Function	General-purpose and mass-produced launch vehicle
Manufacturer	SpaceX
Country of origin	United States
Project cost	At least US$5 billion[1]
Size
Height	121.3 m (398 ft)
Diameter	9 m (30 ft)
Mass	5,000 t (11,000,000 lb)
Capacity
Payload to LEO
Mass	Reusable: 100–150 t (220,000–331,000 lb)
Volume	1,000 m3 (35,000 cu ft)
Associated rockets
Derivative work	Starship HLS
Comparable	N1 Saturn V Space Shuttle Falcon Heavy Space Launch System Long March 9
Launch history
Status	In development
Launch sites	SpaceX Starbase Kennedy Space Center, LC-39A (planned) Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, SLC-37 (planned)
Total launches	3
Success(es)	1 (IFT-3)[a]
Failure(s)	2 (IFT-1, IFT-2)
First flight	April 20, 2023; 12 months ago (April 20, 2023)
Last flight	March 14, 2024
First stage – Super Heavy
Height	71 m (233 ft)
Diameter	9 m (30 ft)
Empty mass	200 t (441,000 lb)
Gross mass	3,600 t (7,937,000 lb)
Propellant mass	3,400 t (7,496,000 lb)
Powered by	33 Raptor engines
Maximum thrust	7,590 tf (74,400 kN; 16,700,000 lbf)
Specific impulse	327 s (3.21 km/s) (sea-level)
Propellant	Liquid oxygen / Methane
Second stage – Starship
Height	50.3 m (165 ft)
Diameter	9 m (30 ft)
Empty mass	~100 t (220,000 lb)[2]
Gross mass	1,300 t (2,866,000 lb)[b]
Propellant mass	1,200 t (2,646,000 lb)
Powered by	3 Raptor engines 3 Raptor vacuum engines
Maximum thrust	1,250 tf (12,300 kN; 2,760,000 lbf)
Specific impulse	327 s (3.21 km/s) (sea-level) 380 s (3.7 km/s) (vacuum)
Propellant	Liquid oxygen / Methane
[edit on Wikidata]

Starship is a two-stage super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX. As of April 2024, it is the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. Starship's primary objective is to lower launch costs significantly via economies of scale.^[3] This is achieved by reusing both rocket stages, increasing payload mass to orbit, increasing launch frequency, creating a mass-manufacturing pipeline, and adapting it to a wide range of space missions.^[4] Starship is the latest project in SpaceX's decades-long reusable launch system development program and ambition of colonizing Mars.

Starship launch vehicle has two stages: the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. Both stages are equipped with Raptor engines, which burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Their main structure is made from stainless steel. After boosting the spacecraft, the Super Heavy booster uses its engines to slow down before being caught by a pair of mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. Once in orbit and completing the mission, the Starship spacecraft reenters the atmosphere, and propulsively lands. Lunar and depot variants do not need to reenter the atmosphere and thus do not have a thermal protection system. Following a 'belly flop' maneuver, where the spacecraft turns from a horizontal to a vertical orientation, the spacecraft touches down via thrust power.

As of 2024, Starship is in development with an iterative and incremental approach, involving test flights of prototype vehicles, which often end in the destruction of the test vehicle. As a successor to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, Starship will perform a wide range of space missions. For missions to further destinations, such as geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars, Starship will rely on orbital refueling from the tanker variants, a ship-to-ship propellant transfer demonstration is expected to occur in 2025 to prove out this critical capability.^[5] Starship will deploy SpaceX's second-generation Starlink satellite constellation, and the Starship HLS variant will land astronauts on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, starting with Artemis 3 in 2026.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).