The SpaceX company's Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful ever built, is scheduled for its first launch today at 3:00 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time).
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, has presented the Starship as the vehicle in which the first astronauts will travel to Mars. Whether or not this goal is met, the new rocket is designed to send payloads and astronauts to Earth orbit and the Moon at a lower cost than any current rocket, so it has the potential to transform the space industry.
On its first launch, the Starship will just fly over Earth and not complete an orbit. She will take off from the SpaceX base, located in the extreme south of Texas on the shores of the Atlantic, heading east; it will drop the first stage of the rocket into the ocean when it has used up its fuel; and, after crossing Africa and Eurasia, it will end up falling in the Pacific near Hawaii.
At 122 meters high, the Starship exceeds the 111 of the Saturn V in which the astronauts of the Apollo program traveled to the Moon, and since 1972 it has been the largest rocket that has taken off from Earth.
But it is above all the power of the Starship that is a game changer in the space industry. Powered by 33 Raptor engines developed by SpaceX, it has the capacity to send up to 150 tons into space with each launch, the company reports on its website.
In addition, the Starship has been designed so that its different components are recovered after each launch and can be reused, an advance introduced in previous SpaceX rockets that helps reduce the cost of launches.
The price of placing satellites in Earth orbit can be reduced to about a thousand euros per kilo, according to an estimate by Edison Yu, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, cited by the Financial Times. This amount will mean a significant reduction compared to the 5,000 euros per kilo of Falcon 9, the SpaceX rocket that currently dominates the satellite launch market and offers launches at more competitive prices than the European Ariane. Therefore, the entry into service of the Starship could harm a part of the European space industry.
But first, the Starship must demonstrate, both in today's launch and in its next missions, that it is reliable and capable of responding to the expectations that SpaceX has generated.
The lower cylinder, or first stage, called Super Heavy, measures 69 meters high by 9 meters in diameter. It is designed to re-enter the atmosphere when it exhausts its 3,400 tons of fuel and return to land at the base from which it took off, just like the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9. In today's release, however, there is no plan to bring back the Super Heavy cylinder.
The upper cylinder, or second stage, called Starship, measures 50 meters in height and 9 in diameter. With 1,200 tons of fuel at takeoff, it is also designed to be reused. At its highest point, the cargoes and crews that are launched into Earth orbit, to the Moon or, in a longer-term future, to more distant destinations will travel.
This news will be updated throughout the day to report the launch and development of the mission
