What's Next For SpaceX Starship? Future Flights, Moon And Mars

Space.com

SpaceX gives an update on the the next steps for the Starship during the flight 6 broadcast last month.  Credit: SpaceX

Transcript

00:00That this is just the beginning.

00:02Every one of these flights is a step closer to a fully operational Starship

00:06that will take us beyond Earth orbit.

00:09And with our pace of rapid iteration here,

00:12the Moon and Mars are not nearly as far in the future as you may think.

00:16In fact, we're planning to send Starships to Mars as soon as 2026.

00:20Which is when the next Mars transfer window opens,

00:23which is under two years from now.

00:25And you might be familiar with the Starlink logo,

00:27which you see there on your screen.

00:29It's an iconic representation of the Mars transfer orbit,

00:31also called the home and transfer orbit.

00:33This transfer window, or the time between the time when Earth and Mars are closest to each other,

00:39opens every 26 months and is only open for about two to three months at a time

00:43for a vehicle with Starship's power.

00:45Lining up a launch to Mars is similar to how we launch to the International Space Station,

00:51where we time the launches to match the station's orbit.

00:54If we didn't do this, we would need more propellant and more time to get there.

00:59So the first opportunity we have to fly Starships to Mars, we plan to go for it.

01:04These first flight tests to Mars will be uncrewed and will test the reliability of landing and tech.

01:09If those landings go well, the first crewed flights will soon follow after that.

01:13Right now, our flight tests are focused on proving out reusability of both Super Heavy and Starship.

01:20In 2025, we'll continue that focus while also potentially flying our first Starlink missions

01:26and demonstrate capabilities central to our role in taking astronauts to the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program.

01:33Starship will be used to land astronauts on the lunar surface on NASA's Artemis III mission,

01:38which will put the first humans on the Moon since 1972.

01:43One key capability will be the ability to refuel Starship on orbit,

01:47which you can see there on your screen, with a Starship prop tanker docked with a fuel depot.

01:52Next year, we're planning to test this capability by launching two Starships

01:57and having them meet up to transfer tons of cryogenic propellants.

02:01When the time comes to land on the Moon, Starship will link up with NASA's Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit,

02:06where astronauts will transfer over for their descent.

02:09Once on the lunar surface, they'll ride the elevator down in their Axiom EMU spacesuits from Axiom Space

02:17and leave the first book prints on the Moon in more than half a century,

02:21kick-starting humanity's mission to establish a sustainable presence there.

02:25And coming soon to a Moon base out the near you, Starship Enterprise Edition.

02:31That is so exciting and all the advancements that are going to come in order to enable all of that.

02:38Now, our rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX's major innovative advancements,

02:44including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink.

02:47Today, we're testing hardware and systems, and we need to know how they perform under the most extreme conditions.

02:54And what's more extreme than the flight environment?

02:57We'd much rather find the bugs and limits now during testing than later on when there's more on the line.

03:02And to reiterate, while we do determine an acceptable level of technical risk on our vehicle and pad

03:10to learn as fast as possible, we accept no compromises when it comes to the safety of the public or our team.

03:16So all that to say, this is only the sixth of many future flight tests of Starship before it becomes fully operational.

03:23And we tend to do our testing out in the open, just like today.

03:27And that means people sometimes see when our hardware doesn't perform as we planned during that testing.

03:33And that's okay, because this is exactly what we are testing for,

03:37to physically see if hardware performance matches what we expect it to do or not.

03:42Even more with today's test flight, where we're purposefully pushing the ship beyond its limits.

03:48Starship development is also being aided by Starlink space-based connectivity.

03:53You might remember the Starlink panels that are incorporated into Starship,

03:57and you can see them there on your screen, those rectangular panels on Starship's nose cone.

04:01Starlink brings us the epic views in space and on re-entry,

04:04and also helps deliver us critical flight data engineers need to continue developing.

04:09Yeah, Starlink continues to help us push the limits in space in the short term

04:14by providing great views and real-time data on our next few flights, particularly through re-entry,

04:20which spaceflight veterans know that that is historically a period of blackout for all communications within spaceflight.

04:27Outside of Starship, Starlink has helped people across the globe,

04:32particularly in rural and remote areas that have been underserved by traditional broadband internet.

04:37Yeah, and soon, Starship will deploy our next generation Starlink satellites,

04:42which will continue to increase our capability to connect even more people

04:46with high-speed internet all around the world and beyond.

04:51Now, as we continue to prepare for our next several flight tests,

04:55we recently performed a cryo-proof test of the Starship for Flight 7,

05:00our first operation with a vehicle debuting a number of major milestones.

05:04The ship has been stretched to make room for larger propellant tanks,

05:09increasing the propellant capacity from 1,200 tons to 1,500 tons.

05:15The forward flaps also got a redesign.

05:17They have shrunk in size, and they also shifted in location,

05:20and both of these things will help better protect them during entry heating while still providing control.

05:26There's also a wide range of upgrades that will make the vehicle more reliable,

05:30adding redundancy and the ability to operate for longer durations in space.

05:35One unique aspect of a trip to Mars are the different conditions the ship will see when entering the Martian atmosphere.

05:41Now, it's difficult to simulate Mars' atmosphere when re-entering on Earth,

05:46so we've been testing a variety of heat shield materials inside a specialized plasma jet chamber

05:51at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,

05:54where we're able to more closely simulate Mars' 95% carbon dioxide atmosphere.

05:59Aside from looking awesome, this is important testing.

06:03The intense heat of entry will cause the CO2 to break down into its base elements,

06:08exposing Starship to atomic oxygen, which increases surface heating

06:12and can cause materials to oxidize or start to break down.

06:15Spacecraft entering over Mars encountered more than twice the amount of atomic oxygen at their peak

06:20when compared to Earth, and that is certainly a unique challenge.

06:24Now, you can see those two towers in the back there in the distance at Starbase.

06:29Starbase is really coming along just as rapidly as Starship itself.

06:33That second launch tower will be coming online next year,

06:36and it will allow us to increase our flight cadence and test even more frequently.

06:40And just a few kilometers away from the two towers,

06:43our cutting-edge, one-million-square-foot star factory is nearing completion

06:47with the goal of producing hundreds of ships a year.

06:50Yeah, that might sound crazy, and that's because it is.

06:54If you can imagine a future where we are flying and catching a fleet of boosters,

06:59which is the lower portion of the vehicle,

07:01that fleet is actually pretty small compared to the potentially hundreds of ships,

07:07the uppermost portion of Starship, that will be flying in that future vision.

07:11Yeah, exactly, Kate.

07:13Those ships will be staying in space for long-duration missions to go to the Moon or Mars

07:17or become tankers for refueling or any number of other uses,

07:21but the boosters will come back and turn around to launch the next ship.

07:25So in order to hit that production cadence of hundreds per year,

07:28we're rapidly building out Starfactory, which is our Starship production facility in Texas.

07:33And live views, not live views, views of that Starfactory there.

07:37Now, this place allows us to move system integration work earlier in the build process,

07:43which means more efficiency, higher quality, and ultimately, faster production.

07:48Starbase is an incredible place to be right now.

07:51There really is nowhere else in the world like it.

07:54You know, hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

07:57Now, what you might be hinting at is the good news is we are hiring.

08:01If you love what you're seeing, check out our openings at Starbase.

08:04On the engineering side, we're looking for vehicle design engineers

08:07across structures, propulsion, and integration.

08:10And if you're a hands-on tech, we're looking for integration technicians and welders

08:15that can help us hit our goal of building a Starship every eight hours.

08:20And to do that, we need builders.

08:22Yeah, we're definitely going to need a lot of builders to get that down to just eight hours.

08:26Right?

08:27Now, beyond that, in order to keep Starbase growing, we have all kinds of roles,

08:31from baristas to HVAC technicians to EMTs.

08:35So, chances are, if you're looking, we have a place for you.

08:38Visit spacex.com forward slash careers to see all of our openings.

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