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SpaceX Starship facts for kids

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Starship
Full Stack starship.jpg
A Starship prototype in launch configuration: Starship spacecraft S24 stacked on Super Heavy B7.
Function Super-heavy lift launch vehicle
Project cost At least US$5 billion
Cost per launch $100 million (expendable)
Size
Height 121.3 m (398 ft)
Diameter 9 m (30 ft)
Mass 5,000,000 kg (11,000,000 lb)
Capacity
Payload to LEO 100,000–150,000 kg (220,000–330,000 lb)
Associated rockets
Derivatives Starship HLS
Comparable
Launch history
Status In development
Launch sites
Total launches 5
Successes 3
Failures 2 (IFT-1, IFT-2)
First flight 20 April 2023; 18 months ago (2023-04-20)
Last flight 13 October 2024; 20 days ago (2024-10-13)
First stage – Super Heavy
Length 71 m (233 ft)
Diameter 9 m (30 ft)
Empty mass 275,000 kg (606,000 lb)
Gross mass 3,675,000 kg (8,102,000 lb)
Propellant mass 3,400,000 kg (7,500,000 lb)
Engines 33 × Raptor engines
Thrust 74,400 kN (16,700,000 lbf)
Specific impulse SL: 327 s (3.21 km/s)
Fuel CH
4
/ LOX
Second stage – Starship
Length 50.3 m (165 ft)
Diameter 9 m (30 ft)
Empty mass ~100,000 kg (220,000 lb)
Gross mass 1,300,000 kg (2,900,000 lb)
Propellant mass 1,200,000 kg (2,600,000 lb)
Engines 3 × Raptor engines
3 × Raptor vacuum engines
Thrust 12,300 kN (2,800,000 lbf)
Specific impulse SL: 327 s (3.21 km/s)
vac: 380 s (3.7 km/s)
Fuel CH
4
/ LOX

Starship is a two-stage fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX. On April 20, 2023, with the first Integrated Flight Test, Starship became the most massive and most powerful vehicle ever to fly. SpaceX has developed Starship with the intention of lowering launch costs using economies of scale. SpaceX aims to achieve this by reusing both rocket stages by "catching" them with the launch tower's systems, increasing payload mass to orbit, increasing launch frequency, mass-manufacturing the rockets and adapting it to a wide range of space missions. Starship is the latest project in SpaceX's reusable launch system development program and plan to colonize Mars.

Starship has two stages: the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. Both stages are equipped with Raptor engines, the first mass-produced full-flow staged combustion cycle engines, which burn liquid methane (natural gas) and liquid oxygen. The main structure is made from a special stainless steel alloy that SpaceX has dubbed "30X".

As of 2024, Starship is in development with an iterative and incremental approach, involving test flights of prototype vehicles. As a successor to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, Starship is intended to perform a wide range of space missions. SpaceX plans versions of the Starship spacecraft including: cargo (satellite deployment), tankers to act as depots for in-orbit refueling of other Starships, human spaceflight, landing on the Moon, and eventually landing on Mars. For missions to further destinations, such as geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars, Starship will rely on orbital refueling from the tanker variant; a ship-to-ship propellant transfer demonstration is expected to occur in 2025 to prove out this critical capability. Starship is planned to deploy SpaceX's second-generation Starlink satellite constellation, and the Starship HLS variant will land astronauts on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, starting with Artemis III in 2026.

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See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Starship (SpaceX) para niños

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