TESMANIAN by Evelyn Arevalo September 04, 2020
Chief Engineer Elon Musk founded SpaceX with the goal to enable humans to live on Mars. The aerospace company is developing its next-generation launch vehicle in South Texas at Boca Chica Beach. According to SpaceX, Starship will be the most powerful rocket in the world; It will be a 120-meter-tall, two-stage launch vehicle consisting of a spacecraft capable of carrying one hundred passengers, and a Super Heavy booster used to propel the craft out of Earth’s atmosphere.
During the Humans To Mars teleconference that took place on Tuesday, Musk said Starship’s Super Heavy “booster prototype one†will initiate construction “this week.†SpaceX Boca Chica teams are building multiple Starship prototypes at the assembly facility, where gigantic vehicle assembly buildings are taking shape to accommodate the massive stainless-steel rocket booster. – “Making a prototype of something is, I think, relatively easy,†he said, “But building the production system so that you can build ultimately hundreds or thousands of Starships, that’s the hard part.â€
Starship is powered by a new type of engine designed and manufactured by SpaceX - the Raptor, It is a full-flow staged combustion engine fueled by sub-cooled liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellants. No rocket’s in operation use this type of fuel. SpaceX developed the Raptor with Mars in mind; astronauts will be capable of refueling Starship to return to Earth. Upon arrival to the Red Planet, they could extract carbon dioxide (CO2) from the Martian atmosphere and subsurface ice-water (H2O) to synthesize methane and liquid oxygen through the Sabatier process and electrolysis. “Together the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket create a reusable transportation system capable of on-orbit refueling and leveraging Mars’ natural H2O and CO2 resources to refuel on the surface of Mars,†SpaceX states.
More:
https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/super-heavy-prototype-one
