Cape Canaveral Feb. 11 (BUS): SpaceX’s Elon Musk said Thursday that the first orbital flight from the towering Starship spacecraft – the world’s most powerful rocket made – could come in another month or two.
While he anticipates failure, he’s confident the Starship will reach orbit by the end of this year, AP reports.
Musk delivered his first major upgrade to the spacecraft more than two years ago while standing next to the 390-foot (119-meter) rocket at SpaceX’s Texas spaceport. He urged the night crowd, “Let’s make this a reality!”
NASA plans to use the fully reusable spacecraft to land astronauts on the Moon as early as 2025. Meanwhile, Musk hopes to deploy a fleet of spaceships to create a city on Mars, hauling equipment and people there.
For now, initial flights will bring Musk’s Internet satellites, called Starlinks, into orbit.
“There will likely be some bumps in the road, but we want to struggle through the satellite missions and test missions” before putting people on board, he said.
SpaceX’s Super Heavy first stage booster has not yet been launched. But the futuristic steel bullet-shaped spacecraft — which floats on top and serves as a upper stage — was successfully launched and landed alone last May, after a series of spectacular explosions. The missile flew more than 6 miles (10 kilometers).
SpaceX is awaiting FAA approval before moving forward with the next phase of the Starship: going into orbit.
Musk said he expects the green light to come in March, and the missile will be ready to fly by then as well. That would put the launch in the next two months, he added.
If the FAA requests more information about potential environmental impacts or lawsuits arise, Musk said the spacecraft launch could move to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He noted that this would delay the first orbital launch by more than half a year.
Full-size spaceships are massive – longer than previous and current NASA rockets, with nearly twice the power to take off.
Besides Cape Canaveral in Florida and the southern tip of Texas near Boca Chica, Starships could eventually be launched from floating ocean platforms anywhere in the world, Musk said.
It envisions launching Starships three times a day – “rapid reusability” – with refill stations into space for longer destinations such as Mars. He said the first refill testing could happen by the end of next year.
Musk estimates that launching a Starship vehicle could cost less than $10 million — perhaps even a few million dollars with a high flight rate, which would drive prices down. He called it “crazy low” and “ridiculously good” by current space standards.
Starship already has one special client: a Japanese businessman who has bought a trip around the moon and plans to take a dozen artists with him.
Musk has hinted that there are others interested in buying flights, saying future announcements will come soon.
So far, SpaceX has relied on its smaller Falcon rockets to launch satellites, as well as astronauts and cargo to NASA’s International Space Station.
The first private flight, bought by a billionaire, was last September. Another coming at the end of March, this one to the space station with three entrepreneurs paying $55 million each.
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