Tech Desk
Sep 09, 2024
Elon Musk's SpaceX is gearing up its Starship megarocket for launch to Mars in 2026. The high-mass program will mark the beginning of a big milestone for interplanetary travel and a place to live.
The starship program shall allow the development of humanity into the solar system with Mars being the first destination.
SpaceX's Starship program
SpaceX's Starship program aims to build a self-sustaining city on Mars within two decades. Initial uncrewed flights will figure out how to make landings on the Red Planet safely.
If those work, crewed missions would follow and subsequently pave the path for humans settling. A permanent, large thriving presence in this way on Mars would be cultivated that will guarantee survival for consciousness.
SpaceX's Starship features
Comprised of two key components, the stainless-steel SpaceX Starship is composed of the Super Heavy booster and the 165-foot-tall Starship spacecraft. Moreover, with a height of 400 feet overall, this reusable rocket will produce 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
Read more: Boeing Starliner successfully returns to home without stranded astronauts of NASA
The Starship will be fully reusable, with the ability to return and launch multiple times, thus drastically reducing the cost of access to space.
SpaceX Starship has completed four test missions, and each flight performed better than the one previous. The recent June mission was successful, reaching all major objectives.
In this case, it exhibited huge progress. Depending on how impressive the vehicle will be, it is headed to orbit and come back to Earth unscathed.
SpaceX is currently gearing up for the fifth Starship flight, which will include the first attempt to land Super Heavy back onto the launch mount. That operation will utilise the "chopstick" arms on the launch tower, adding an exciting new element to the mission.
Missions to Mars are also under development, including the necessary infrastructure, like a fuel depot in lunar orbit.
SpaceX is working on various other technologies to bring down the cost of accessing space quite drastically. In the words of Musk: with each flight of Starship, "excitement is guaranteed".
SpaceX will be further pushing the limits for space exploration and settling on Mars. In the longer run, it sees a real human settlement on Mars, terraforming, and making it inhabitable.
