SpaceX's Starship rocket, the world's largest, will get even larger as the company continues to target future Mars missions.
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be 500 feet (150 meters) tall, about 20 percent taller than the massive system aboard a Super Heavy rocket currently.
What's more, advances in reusability will cost each launch roughly $3 million, Musk predicted. This is less than a third of the cost of launching a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (Two decades ago the figure was $5.9 million, According to NBCwhich is approximately $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)
“These are unimaginable numbers,” Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly on April 6, nearly a month after the third and final test flight to date. “No one ever thought this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to make this happen. So this is within limits, without breaking physics. We can do this.”
Related: SpaceX launches a massive Super Heavy booster ahead of the fourth test flight of the spacecraft (photos and video)
Musk tends to provide Starship updates at least once a year to highlight the progress the company is making toward its long-term plans to colonize Mars. In fact, last year saw three Starship launches, so progress has been made recently. However, Musk did not address the delay in the Starship launch that contributed to the postponement of the launch date for the first lunar landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.
SpaceX was selected as supplier for the Artemis 3 landing mission, which until recently was scheduled for 2025. In January, NASA chose to push back the launch date by another year, to 2026, due to a host of technical issues. Aside from Starship's lack of readiness — the agency wants several successful launches before it is approved for astronaut flights — Artemis 3 has also been delayed by slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.
Musk's words to employees about Artemis, however, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven in its three test flights.
“This will be very important for NASA’s Artemis program to return to the moon,” Musk said of these capabilities. He also envisions an “Alpha Moon Base” that would include ships “specialized to go to and from the Moon,” meaning there would be no heat shield or panels due to the lack of atmosphere.
Related: NASA celebrates third test flight of SpaceX Starship, but more work is needed before Artemis lunar missions
Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual topics of his Red Planet updates, focusing on how a lot of cargo will be sent there for eventual settlers. He noted that it would take thousands of launches; For perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches, about 80 percent of which have reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost).
SpaceX is the most active launch entity on Earth, and Musk expects the company to send nearly 90% of orbital mass aloft this year compared to 6% for China (the second-largest entity).
Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land “on a virtual tower” in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once that's safely completed, Musk will consider using the launch area at Starbase, South Texas, for a future landing as soon as the fifth flight. (Musk estimated the chances of success for the fourth flight at 80% or 90%).
Musk also wants to perform two successive landings of the spacecraft's upper stage, in a controlled manner, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. “We don't want to rain debris on Mexico or the United States,” he said. “I think next year will probably be the time when we will be able to reuse the spacecraft.”
Overall, Musk plans to conduct multiple Starship launches this year, and suggests SpaceX will build six additional spacecraft by the end of 2024. The company's new rocket factory should be available in 2025, which will make production faster.
Future versions of Starship will include a “Starship 2” vehicle to send 100 tons of payload into low Earth orbit and a 500-foot-tall “Starship 3” to carry 200 tons or more. Musk stressed that larger vehicles will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to prepare the spacecraft for the journey to Mars one day.
Among those milestones, Musk said, “it's going to be a very success-oriented schedule.” His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve every launch, nor ongoing criticism of Starship's environmental impact on the environmentally sensitive area near Starbase.
This impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches per day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make long-term settlement possible. As for the number of people headed to Mars, it will be about 1 million, he said — and that's consistent with projections he's made at least since 2017. Musk also says he wants to begin settlement “within 20 years.” He said the same thing in 2011.
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