SpaceX New Website Reveals More Details On Starship Mars Rocket, Super Heavy

After the presentation by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday, which unveiled the pace of Mars Starship, the new website of SpaceX has offered more details on the reusable cargo and passenger vehicle.

The site has hot information about the Super Heavy, the first-stage booster that will catapult Starship to orbital altitudes and into space.

Starship is being developed as one of the “world’s most powerful launch vehicle,” says SpaceX news.

Starship with a cargo capacity of 100 metric tons is orbital-refueling enabled for the freight of passengers to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

In terms of dimensions, the Starship site says the final vehicle will have a height of 160 feet without the booster and the diameter will be 30 feet. The propellant capacity will be 1,200 metric tons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen.

The material used in making Starship will be stainless steel and half of its surface will be in glass tiles to withstand the worst heat upon atmospheric entry.

Super Heavy’s features and high thrust

As for Super Heavy booster, the website says, it will have the 30-foot diameter and a height of 223 feet. The propellant capacity will be a massive 3,300 metric tons, and thrust capability will be 72 meganewtons. This will be twice the thrust of the NASA Saturn V rocket that had 35 MN thrust.

SpaceX says it is targeting orbital flight for Starship in 2020 and expects Starship to hit the milestone in less than six months. It also exudes optimism that it would fly people to Mars or Moon in the next one year.

Progress in the testing of spaceship prototypes

SpaceX has already conducted two low-altitude flight tests with Starhopper, an early prototype of Starship powered by a single Raptor engine.

Starship Mk1, another prototype will fly to an altitude of 12 miles in two months, Musk said at the presentation and added more aggressive tests are to follow.

More Starship prototypes will be built before the orbit test. While the Mk1 was unveiled in Texas, the Mk2 is progressing in Florida and Mk3 will start in Boco Chica in November.

According to Musk, the vehicle in the orbital test will be an Mk4 or Mk5 prototype and it will be boosted from the Earth’s surface by the Super Heavy rocket, with a double thrust of NASA Saturn V used in crewed moon missions from 1967 to 1973.

Meanwhile, among other Mars colonization projects, the Mars One by a Dutch organization had much media spotlight as much as Mars rovers. It promised to land the first humans on Mars to establish a permanent human colony. But the company declared bankrupt this year.