The Elon Musk-led SpaceX company will attempt to launch the Starship rocket on its first mission today after the first launch attempt was canceled on Monday due to a valve anomaly. Takeoff is scheduled at 3:28 p.m. (Spanish time) from the SpaceX base in Boca Chica, located in the southern tip of Texas on the shores of the Atlantic. The launch window closes at 4:30 p.m., so if the rocket has not yet lifted off by that time, the first Starship flight will have to be rescheduled for another day.
It is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Its 120 meters in height are higher than the 111 of the Saturn V, the NASA rocket that sent the astronauts of the Apollo program to the Moon, and which has so far been the largest rocket in history. The Space Launch System (SLS) that NASA launched in September with the aim of sending astronauts to the Moon again this decade with the Artemis program measured 98 meters
It has the capacity to send payloads of up to 150 tons to low Earth orbit, compared to the 120 tons that the Saturn V could send and the 95 tons of the first SLS.
The Starship's silver color is due to its being made of stainless steel, which sets it apart from the traditional white of rockets made of other materials. The black part that can be seen in its upper third is the heat shield that will protect the spacecraft from the high temperatures of reentry into the atmosphere when it returns to Earth on future missions.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, has touted Starship as the rocket that will take the first astronauts to Mars. But there is currently no guarantee that astronauts can get safely to Mars, no technology to ensure their survival when they get there, and no means for them to return to Earth, so SpaceX's business with Starship is not on Mars.
The new rocket will launch missions to the Moon at a lower cost than any previous rocket, and will lower the cost of launching satellites and astronauts to low-Earth orbit. SpaceX plans to use the Starship to deploy its constellation of Starlink satellites, currently made up of some 3,600 devices and which will expand in the coming years to reach at least 12,000. In addition, the company has obtained a $2.9 billion contract from NASA for Starship to participate in manned missions to the Moon under the Artemis program.
Starship will help SpaceX consolidate its leadership in the Earth orbit launch market and position the company to become a leader in launches to the Moon.
The unit that is usually used to calculate the cost of the launches is the price of sending a kilo into space. With a larger rocket, the cost per kilo is reduced compared to a smaller rocket.
In addition, SpaceX has been a pioneer in designing reusable rockets. He has developed technologies that allow the different parts of the rocket to land again when they have completed their mission. Other companies and space agencies usually abandon them in the ocean or in space when they have completed their mission, a practice that Elon Musk has compared to destroying planes after flying just once.
Added to this is the fact that SpaceX is a more efficient private company than space agencies such as NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA), which are less motivated to avoid cost overruns.
This has allowed SpaceX to reduce the cost of launches to around 3,000 euros per kilo with its Falcon 9 rocket, which is now the one that launches the most satellites in the world. With other rockets such as the European Ariane 5, the cost was traditionally around €10,000 per kilo. According to Elon Musk, the cost may drop to 100 euros per kilo when the Starship has entered service.
The Starship has been designed to carry both people and satellites or other cargo. As with other rockets, the lower part of the apparatus will provide the propulsion to reach space and the astronauts will travel on the upper part.
SpaceX classifies the first launch of the Starship as a test flight. It is intended to record data on the behavior of the rocket so that it can safely launch satellites and astronauts in the future. The rocket will limit itself to going around the world, reaching a maximum altitude of 235 kilometers and without reaching orbit.
The lower cylinder, or first stage, called Super Heavy, will propel the aircraft for the first eight minutes after takeoff. It will then separate from the upper stage and head back towards the base from which it launched. At today's launch it is not planned to recover the Super Heavy cylinder but to let it sink in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast.
The upper cylinder, or second stage, called Starship as the rocket assembly, will sink in the Pacific north of the Hawaiian archipelago after circumnavigating the globe. In future missions it will be recovered.
