Exploring The Frontier: Everything You Need To Know About The 1st Test Flight of SpaceX’s Big Starship

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is getting ready to do an astonishing test flight with their giant Starship. It’s the tallest and strongest rocket ever that was created to take people to the moon and Mars. Standing 120 meters high, it should launch as soon as Monday without any passengers on board. The Federal Aviation Administration approved this plan on Friday.

This launch of the two parts Starship will be the first of its kind. The upper part, which looks like it came from a science-fiction movie, had gone up into the atmosphere for many miles in prior attempts but crashed four times before finally managing to stay standing in 2021. Additionally, this time around, Super Heavy -which is the first stage rocket booster- will soar for the first time too. However, neither the rocket nor spacecraft will land safely since both of them are expected to just fall into the sea after this demonstration ends.

Last month, at a Morgan Stanley conference, Elon Musk said that his newly designed rocket, Starship, will be really exciting to watch and it might have about a 50% chance of reaching orbit. He wants everyone to witness the launch of this super-sized rocket.

SUPERSIZE ROCKET

The amazing Starship, made from stainless steel, has 33 powerful engines and can get 16.7 million pounds of power! These methane-fueled motors all lit up during an experiment in January which was enough force to reach outer space. This starship can take as much as 250 tons and even fit 100 people inside if it needs to go somewhere far like Mars. There are 6 total engines and it’s about 164 feet tall. Elon Musk believes that this starship could launch his Starlinks into low-Earth orbit for internet use before anyone gets on board! Amazingly, this amazing rocket is bigger than NASA’s moon rockets (Saturn V & Space Launch System) and the USSR N1 rocket, a spaceship that unfortunately never flew too high before falling apart.

GAME PLAN

Let’s think through what actions we need to take to make sure that we have a plan in place. We’ll put our ideas down into a list and go over them step by step. That way, we can figure out the best way to move forward!

The test flight for Starship rockets will last one and a half hours, but it won’t be able to finish an entire lap around the Earth. If the rocket reaches three minutes into its mission, it will stop and separate from the booster section as it continues eastward over oceans like the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific before splashing down in Hawaii. This rocket is designed to be reusable, but none of the parts can be kept after this test flight. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and spacecraft tracker from Harvard University, is hoping that someday Starship will return safely from orbit. It would be an incredible milestone for spaceflight if Starship is successful!

LAUNCH PAD

A launch pad is a platform designed to help objects, such as rockets and satellites, take off into the sky. This structure helps propel the spacecrafts safely off of the Earth’s surface and into their designated orbit.

SpaceX will be launching Starship from a place near Boca Chica Beach in the very south of Texas. It’s close to South Padre Island and about 20 miles from Brownsville. Nearby is the complex where SpaceX builds their Starship prototypes for many years now. It’s called Starbase, and it has more than 1,800 workers that live in the city or elsewhere in Rio Grande Valley. The launch pad there has big robot arms called ‘chopsticks’ since they can grab back the booster once it lands down there. At the same time, SpaceX is preparing one of their launch pads in Florida to work with Starships too — here they use Falcon rockets to send people into space, bring things inside the space station & put satellites up in the sky for NASA & other clients.

THE ODDS

Elon Musk thinks it is not very likely that the Starship will fly into space on its first try, but he believes that there is an 80 percent chance that one of them will make it by the end of this year. It may take another couple years after that before these Starships can be reused again and again.

CUSTOMERS

SpaceX’s Starship is currently focused on the moon and has a $3 billion contract with NASA to take astronauts to the surface in 2025, which would be the first time anyone has been there in over 50 years! The astronauts will depart from Earth inside of an Orion capsule, attached to a Space Launch System rocket. After entering lunar orbit, they’ll board the Starship and descend towards the moon from there before returning back to the Orion. To go further and reach the moon, Starship will need refueling first in low-Earth orbit with special “tanker” ships that have no windows. Two private trips to orbit around the moon are planned once this process is complete – no landings, just flyarounds.

OTHER PLAYERS

If you’re playing a game, there are other people that are playing alongside you. These are the players that you compete with or work together with in order to progress further into the game.

Companies like Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and NASA are creating new rockets. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will go on its maiden voyage really soon from Florida, and it’s named after John Glenn who was the first person to orbit the world. On the other hand, New Shepard is named for Alan Shepard who took a short trip into space in 1961. NASA plans to use this rocket to send two spacecrafts to Mars in 2024. Later this year, ULA’s Vulcan Rocket will be used to boost a lunar lander so it can reach the moon and deliver supplies for NASA. At last, Europe’s Arianespace is about to launch their Ariane 6 from South America and later on,NASA’s Space Launch System application that will take astronauts up will turn into bigger models overtime too!

The Big Big News Health and Science Department just got some help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The Associated Press company is responsible for all the information in this news.