SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk announced that the firm will send its “Starship” rocket into orbit in January.
During a call with the National Academy of Sciences, the entrepreneur noted that there is “a lot of risk associated with this first launch, so I would not say that it is likely to be successful, but we’ll make a lot of progress.”
The AP reports:
Musk said he’s confident Starship — launching for the first time atop a mega booster — will successfully reach orbit sometime in 2022. After a dozen or so orbital test flights next year, SpaceX then would start launching valuable satellites and other payloads to orbit on Starships in 2023, he said.
NASA has contracted with SpaceX to use Starship for delivering astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2025. Musk plans to use the reusable ships to eventually land people on Mars.
Musk one day plans to build 1,000 Starships to make life multiplanetary.
Starship — which is capable of carrying over 220,000 pounds into orbit and powered by twenty-nine Raptor engines — is 400 feet tall. SpaceX started preparing the vessel for launch several months ago at its space hub near Boca Chica Village, Texas. According to a Federal Communications Commission filing that describes the mission:
The Starship Orbital test flight will originate from Starbase, TX. The Booster stage will separate approximately 170 seconds into flight. The Booster will then perform a partial return and land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 20 miles from the shore. The Orbital Starship will continue on flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100km (~62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing.
Over the past two decades, SpaceX has driven a push toward cutting costs through reusable rockets that can land themselves. In the past eighteen months, SpaceX has taken dozens of satellites into orbit and carried two American astronauts to the International Space Station — the first time astronauts have launched from American soil in nearly ten years.
The prospect of space tourism has also gained steam in recent months.
In July, Virgin Galactic carried a small crew of civilians — including Richard Branson, the company’s founder — fifty-three miles above the Earth on a rocket-powered plane. By a margin of only a few days, Branson edged out Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin mission to win the “billionaire space race.”
Space Capital — a venture firm that invests in early-stage space technology — points out that record levels of investment are following the billionaires into space.
“With another $8.7B invested into 112 space companies in Q3, there has now been $231.2B of equity investment into 1,654 unique companies in the space economy over the past 10 years,” explained the group’s October report. “VCs invested another $3.9B into 83 space companies in Q3, of which $2.0B went to U.S. companies. Infrastructure companies have already hit a new record, with $10.3B invested YTD (6% more than full year 2020), driven in part by SPACs.”