SpaceX Rocket Can Be Used For Future Solar System Tour

Elon Musk’s space agency, SpaceX, is literally going out of this world when it comes to its role in space exploration, this time proposing that it’s possible to tour not only the moon or planet Mars but the whole solar system.

According to a report, Musk proposed a very unusual approach to explore the solar system’s farthest planets and to also study surrounding asteroids. The approach would require the SpaceX Starship to be stripped of unnecessary parts and payloads, leaving only provisions for Starlink satellites that can be used for interplanetary missions using high-resolution cameras.

This will be a real challenge to the billionaire-visionary as it might need a possible redesigning of the Starship spacecraft. SpaceX has high hopes for the Starship as it was conceptualized to be a multi-use spacecraft meant for future explorations of the moon and the Red Planet.

If plans to explore the solar system get the go signal, then SpaceX would have to massively cut extraneous mass on the Starship and determine where it can get the needed firepower to make it to the cosmic destination. The Telserati report said that outer planets, especially those found beyond the solar system’s main asteroid belt, are around 400 million miles away from Earth. Traveling to these distances entails decades and would need powerful rockets like the BFR to continue.

For better reference, New Horizons, the tiny spacecraft which gave us the first close-up pictures of Pluto and the MU69 comet/asteroid, was able to do its mission due to specific factors. First, it weighed less than 480 kilograms and was given enough energy via a radioisotope generator (RTG). It needed some gravitational assistance from Jupiter before reaching Pluto a few years after.

New Horizons was launched in January 2006 and reached the farthest planet from the sun in July 2015. The spacecraft traveled an average of 13.8 kilometers per second.

The Starlink satellite could prove to be a similar payload as New Horizons as it weighs only 400 kilograms. However, that’s where the similarity ends. Starlink needs solar power and can generate energy only at the same distance as the Earth from the sun.

At any rate, we do know that if there’s a company who can complete such a mission then it can be SpaceX. The space company is known for radical ideas when it comes to space exploration so we won’t be surprised if Musk has something up his sleeve for such a project.