To get to Mars, SpaceX first needs Starship to launch
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to take its most daring leap yet with a round-the-world test flight of its mammoth Starship
- It’s the biggest and mightiest rocket ever built, with the lofty goals of ferrying people to the moon and Mars
This particular launch is nearly two-decades in the making. As early as 2005, Musk hinted at plans to build a giant rocket code-named “BFR”.
Though the precise plans for the vehicle have changed over time, its purpose has remained the same: landing people on other worlds and fulfilling Musk’s dream of a human settlement on the “red planet”.
“Starship is the first vehicle that is really able to execute on Musk’s vision of making humanity multiplanetary,” said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Analytics, a space consulting firm. “So in a way it’s all been building to this point.”
Once it becomes operational, Starship will be the most powerful rocket humanity has ever built, capable of generating 16.7 million pounds of thrust at lift-off and carrying gargantuan payloads to Earth orbit and beyond. Its power and size makes it a critical part of SpaceX’s future, with the capability of launching massive satellites and large crews of spacefarers.