SpaceX Starship

In News: 

SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s biggest rocket, exploded during its first test-flight to space.

About Starship

  • SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – collectively referred to as Starship.
    • Super Heavy rocket:  It is the first stage, or booster, of the Starship launch system.
      • Powered by 33 Raptor engines using sub-cooled liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX).
      • The Raptor engine is a reusable methane-oxygen staged-combustion engine that powers the Starship system
      • ·Super Heavy is fully reusable and will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere to land back at the launch site.
    • Starship spacecraft: It is the second stage of the Starship system.
      • It is also capable of point-to-point transport on Earth, enabling travel to anywhere in the world in one hour or less.
  • It is a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
  • It is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tons fully reusable and 250 metric tons expendable.

Objectives 

  • the goal is to make Starship reusable and bring down the price to a few million dollars per flight.
  • The eventual objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and put humans on the “path to being a multi-planet civilization

Upcoming Mission 

  • The U.S. space agency NASA has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 — a mission known as Artemis III — for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

 

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Artemis III Mission

  • The Artemis III plan is to land a crew at the Moon’s south polar region. It is planned to have two astronauts on the surface of the Moon for about one week. The mission is intended to be the first to place a woman and a non-white person on the Moon.

For further reading on ARTEMIS Program, kindly follow this link https://www.nextias.com/current-affairs/31-08-2022/nasas-artemis-programme