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Artistic rendition of the SpaceX Super Heavy booster lifting the Starship vehicle during ascent
| |
| Function | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | SpaceX |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Project cost | US$5 billion, estimated |
| Size | |
| Height | 118 m (387 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Mass | 4,400,000 kg (9,700,000 lb) |
| Stages | 2 |
| Capacity | |
| Payload to LEO | 100,000+ kg (220,000+ lb) (fully reusable) |
| Payload to Moon | 100,000+ kg (220,000+ lb) (with orbital refueling) |
| Payload to Mars | 100,000+ kg (220,000+ lb) (with orbital refueling) |
| Launch history | |
| Status | In development |
| Launch sites | Test flights:
Operational flights:
Transcontinental shuttle:
|
| First flight | 2020 (planned) |
| First stage – Super Heavy | |
| Length | 63 m (207 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Gross mass | 3,065,000 kg (6,757,000 lb) |
| Engines | 31 × Raptor |
| Thrust | 61.8 MN (13,900,000 lbf) |
| Specific impulse | 330 s (3.2 km/s) |
| Fuel | Subcooled CH 4 / LOX |
| Second stage – Starship | |
| Length | 55 m (180 ft) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) |
| Empty mass | 85,000 kg (187,000 lb) |
| Gross mass | 1,335,000 kg (2,943,000 lb) |
| Propellant mass | |
| Engines | 7 × Raptor |
| Thrust | 13.9 MN (3,100,000 lbf) |
| Specific impulse | 380 s (3.7 km/s) (vacuum) |
| Fuel | Subcooled CH 4 / LOX |
The Big Falcon Rocket (officially shortened to BFR) is a privately-funded, fully-reusable launch vehicle and spacecraft system in development by SpaceX. In November 2018 the second stage and ship was renamed by Elon Musk to Starship, while the first stage was given the moniker "Super Heavy". The overall space vehicle architecture includes both launch vehicle and spacecraft, as well as ground infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch, and zero-gravity propellant transfer technology to be deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO). The payload capacity to Earth orbit of at least 100,000 kg (220,000 lb) makes BFR a super heavy-lift launch vehicle. However, if the pattern seen in previous iterations holds, the full Starship-Super Heavy stack could be capable of launching 150 tons or more to low Earth orbit, more than any other launch vehicle currently planned. The first orbital flight is tentatively planned for 2020.
SpaceX has been developing a super heavy-lift launch vehicle for many years, with the design (and nomenclature) of the vehicle undergoing several revisions over time. Before 2016, the vehicle was referred to as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), then in 2016, Musk presented the vehicle as the ITS launch vehicle, forming a core part of the SpaceX comprehensive vision for an Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). In September 2017, the design changed to a much smaller 9 m (30 ft)-diameter vehicle and was given the code name BFR.
The launch vehicle design is dependent on the concurrent development work on the Raptor rocket engines, which are cryogenic methalox-fueled engines to be used for both stages of the BFR launch vehicle. Development on the Raptor began in 2012, leading to engine testing which began in 2016.
The BFR system is intended to completely replace all of SpaceX's existing space hardware (the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, and the Dragon spacecraft), initially aiming at the Earth-orbit launch market, but explicitly adding substantial capability to support long-duration spaceflight in the cislunar and Mars transport flight environments.
History
The
development of the BFR started in 2012, when in March, news accounts
asserted that a Raptor upper-stage engine had begun development,
although no details were released at that time.
In October 2012, Musk publicly stated a high-level plan to build a
second reusable rocket system with capabilities substantially beyond the
Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launch vehicles on which SpaceX had by then spent several billion US dollars.
This new vehicle was to be "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster
... 'much bigger'." But he indicated that SpaceX would not be speaking
publicly about it until 2013.
In June 2013, Musk stated that he intended to hold off any potential initial public offering of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly."
In August 2014, media sources speculated that the initial flight test
of the Raptor-driven super-heavy launch vehicle could occur as early as
2020, in order to fully test the engines under orbital spaceflight
conditions; however, any colonization effort was reported to be "deep
into the future".
In early 2015, Musk said that he hoped to release details in late
2015 of the "completely new architecture" for the system that would
enable the colonization of Mars. Those plans were delayed, following a launch failure in June 2015 until after SpaceX returned to flight in late December 2015.
In September 2016, at the 67th annual meeting of the International Astronautical Congress,
Musk unveiled substantial details of a SpaceX design concept for a much
larger transport vehicle, 12 meters (39 ft) in diameter, the ITS launch vehicle, aimed specifically at the interplanetary transport use case. At the time, the system architecture was referred to as the "Interplanetary Transport System" (ITS) and included detailed discussion of the overall SpaceX Mars transportation mission architecture.
This included the launch vehicle (the very large size 12-meter core
diameter, vehicle construction material, number and type of engines,
thrust, cargo and passenger payload capabilities) but also on-orbit
propellant-tanker refills, representative transit times, and various
portions of the Mars-side and Earth-side infrastructure that SpaceX
would require to support a set of three flight vehicles. The three
distinct vehicles that made up the 2016 ITS launch vehicle concept were
the:
- ITS booster, the first-stage of the launch vehicle
- ITS spaceship, a second-stage and long-duration in-space spacecraft
- ITS tanker, an alternative second-stage designed to carry more propellant for refueling other vehicles in space
The talk included presentation of a larger systemic vision,
aspirationally hoping that other interested parties (whether companies,
individuals, or governments) would utilize the new and significantly
lower-cost transport infrastructure that SpaceX hoped to build in order
enable a sustainable human civilization on Mars.
In July 2017, Musk indicated that the architecture had "evolved
quite a bit" since the 2016 articulation of the Mars architecture. A key
driver of the updated architecture was to be making the system useful
for substantial Earth-orbit and cislunar launches so that the system
might pay for itself, in part, through economic spaceflight activities
in the near-Earth space zone.
In September 2018, a less drastic redesign was announced, stretching
the second stage slightly and adding radially-steerable forward canards and aft fins,
used for pitch control in a new reentry profile resembling a descending
skydiver. The aft fins act as landing legs, with a third leg on the top
that looks identical but serves no aerodynamic purpose.
Unveiling
In September 2017, at the 68th annual meeting of the International Astronautical Congress,
SpaceX unveiled the updated vehicle architecture. Musk said "we are
searching for the right name, but the code name, at least, is BFR." The 2017 revised design concept was a 9-meter (30 ft) diameter carbon-composite technology set of vehicles, using methalox-fueled Raptor rocket engine technology directed initially at the Earth-orbit and cislunar environment, later, being used for flights to Mars.
2017 BFR design, carbon-composite construction with a delta wing on the reusable second stage.
The 2017 design was cylindrical and included a small delta wing at the rear end which included a split flap for pitch and roll control. The delta wing and split flaps were said to be needed to expand the flight envelope to allow the ship to land in a variety of atmospheric densities (none, thin, or heavy atmosphere) with a wide range of payloads (small, heavy, or none) in the nose of the ship.
Three versions of the ship were described: BFS cargo, BFS tanker, and
BFS crew. The cargo version will be used to launch satellites to low
Earth orbit—delivering "significantly more satellites at a time than
anything that has been done before"—as well as for cargo transport to the Moon and Mars. After retanking in a high-elliptic Earth orbit the spaceship is being designed to be able to land on the Moon and return to Earth without further refueling.
Additionally, the BFR system was shown to theoretically have the
capability to carry passengers and/or cargo in rapid Earth-to-Earth
transport, delivering its payload anywhere on Earth within 90 minutes.
By September 2017, Raptor engines had been tested for a combined
total of 1200 seconds of test firing time over 42 main engine tests. The
longest test was 100 seconds, which is limited by the size of the
propellant tanks at the SpaceX ground test facility. The test engine
operates at 20 MPa (200 bar; 2,900 psi) pressure. The flight engine is aimed for 25 MPa (250 bar; 3,600 psi), and SpaceX expects to achieve 30 MPa (300 bar; 4,400 psi) in later iterations. In November 2017, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell indicated that approximately half of all development work on BFR was then focused on the Raptor engine.
The aspirational goal in 2017 was to send the first two cargo missions to Mars in 2022,
with the goal to "confirm water resources and identify hazards" while
putting "power, mining, and life support infrastructure" in place for
future flights, followed by four ships in 2024, two crewed BFR
spaceships plus two cargo-only ships bringing additional equipment and
supplies with the goal of setting up the propellant production plant.
In a subsequent announcement held at SpaceX's Hawthorne
headquarters in September 2018, Elon Musk showed a redesign concept of
the BFS with three rear fins and two front canard fins added for
atmospheric entry, replacing the delta wing with split flaps showed a
year earlier. The revised BFR design utilizes seven identically-sized
Raptor engines in the second stage; the same engine model as will be
used on the first stage. The second stage design has two small actuating
fins near the nose of the ship, and three large fins at the base, two
of which actuate, and all three doubling as landing legs. Additionally, an initial 2023 lunar circumnavigation mission was announced. The spaceship is to be used for a proposed private mission to fly space tourists around the Moon, sponsored by Yusaku Maezawa along with several artists of various disciplines.
SpaceX also stated in the second half of the month that they were
"no longer planning to upgrade Falcon 9 second stage for reusability." The two major parts of the BFR launch vehicle were also given their own descriptive names in November: Starship
for the spaceship/upper stage and "Super Heavy" for the booster stage
"needed to escape Earth’s deep gravity well (not needed for other
planets or moons)."
Construction begins
By
early 2018, the first ship was under construction, and SpaceX had begun
constructing a new permanent production facility to build the 9-meter
vehicles at the Port of Los Angeles. Manufacture of the first ship was underway by March 2018 in a temporary facility at the port, with first suborbital test flights planned for no earlier than 2019.
The company continued to state publicly its aspirational goal for
initial Mars-bound cargo flights of BFR launching as early as 2022,
followed by the first crewed flight to Mars one synodic period later, in 2024, consistent with the no-earlier-than dates mentioned in late-2017.
Back in 2015, SpaceX had been scouting for manufacturing facility
locations to build the large rocket, with locations being investigated
in California, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.
By September 2017, SpaceX had already started building launch vehicle
components. "The tooling for the main tanks has been ordered, the
facility is being built, we will start construction of the first ship
[in the second quarter of 2018.]"
In March 2018, SpaceX publicly announced that it would
manufacture its next-generation, 9-meter-diameter (30 ft) launch vehicle
and spaceship at a new facility the company is constructing in
2018–2019 on Seaside Drive at the Port of Los Angeles.
The company had leased an 18-acre site for 10 years, with multiple
renewals possible, and will use the site for manufacturing, recovery
from shipborne landings, and refurbishment of both the booster and the
spaceship. Final regulatory approval of the new manufacturing facility came from the Board of Harbor Commissioners in April 2018, and the Los Angeles City Council in May. By that time, approximately 40 SpaceX employees were working on the design and construction of BFR. Over time, the project was expected to have 700 technical jobs. The permanent Port of Los Angeles facility was projected to be a 203,500-square-foot (18,910 m2) building that would be 105 feet (32 m) tall.
The fully assembled launch vehicle was expected at that time to be "transported by barge, through the Panama Canal, to Cape Canaveral in Florida for launch."
Nine months after starting construction of some parts of the first test article carbon composite Starship
low-altitude test vehicle, SpaceX CEO Musk announced that the
"counterintuitive new design approach" he had been mentioning for a
month was that the primary construction material for the rocket's
structure and propellant tanks would be "fairly heavy...but extremely
strong" metal, subsequently revealed to be stainless steel.
Just three months later, March 2019, SpaceX had scrapped millions of
dollars worth of carbon-composite production tooling they had purchased
from Ascent Aerospace
that had been delivered to SpaceX for use only the previous April,
abandoned all Port of Los Angeles production plans, and shut down their
composite port-side manufacturing facility.
Following a personal trip to the South Texas Launch Site in Boca Chica, Texas, Elon Musk revealed on 23 December 2018 that the first test article Starship had been under construction there for several weeks, out in the open on SpaceX property. The "hopper" was being built from a special alloy of stainless steel—not carbon composite
as previously thought. According to Musk, the reason for using this
material is that "it’s [stainless steel] obviously cheap, it’s obviously
fast—but it’s not obviously the lightest. But it is actually the
lightest. If you look at the properties of a high-quality stainless
steel, the thing that isn’t obvious is that at cryogenic temperatures,
the strength is boosted by 50 percent." Starship would be used on the initial test flights
to characterize the vehicle and develop the landing and
low-altitude/low-velocity reentry control algorithms. The initial test
vehicle will fly with only three of the seven possible Raptor methalox engines installed, and the initial flight is expected no earlier than the first half of 2019.
In January 2019, SpaceX changed course and said it would also build the second test vehicle—the Starship orbital prototype—in Texas, after having earlier said that it would be built in the Port of Los Angeles.
Super Heavy prototype assembly is planned to start NET April
2019. The first Super Heavy flights will likely fly with fewer than all
31 Raptor engines, simply because they will not be needed for the early
test flights, and it will reduce the cost to SpaceX in the event of a
booster failure during the early flights.
Testing
Testing began at the subsystem
level, as it does with most launch vehicles, with rocket engine
component tests, followed by tests of the complete rocket engine in ground test facilities. Raptor engine component-level testing began in May 2014
with the first full-engine test in September 2016.
By September 2017, the development Raptor engine had undergone 1200 seconds of hotfire testing in ground-test stands across 42 main engine tests, with the longest test at that time being 100 seconds.
SpaceX indicated in November 2018 that they were considering
testing a heavily-modified Falcon 9 second stage that would look like a "mini-BFR Ship" and be used for atmospheric reentry testing of a number of technologies needed for the full-scale spaceship, including a high-Mach control surfaces.
Several weeks later, Musk clarified that SpaceX would not build a
mini-BFR but would accelerate development of the full-sized BFR instead.
From as early as October 2017, the month after the BFR concept was unveiled, flight tests
at the launch vehicle subsystem level of the Big Falcon Rocket were
expected to begin with short suborbital hops of the full-scale reusable
second stage—subsequently named Starship—likely to be no more than few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance, with initial test flights projected to be as early as 2019. By September 2018, it was clear that hops of the upper stage spaceship were to be conducted from the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site near Brownsville, Texas.
SpaceX filed an application with the FCC
in November 2018 for an experimental radio communications license to
support the test flight program, with all test flights on that permit
slated to remain under 5 kilometers (16,000 ft) in altitude.
Both the test article Starship and the launch site were under construction in South Texas by late 2018
and the primary structure of the first test "hopper" was complete by 10 January 2019. On 15 January 2019, SpaceX technicians separated the nose and tail sections of the Starship hopper so fuel and oxidizer tank bulkheads could start being installed on 21 January 2019. Unfortunately, on 23 January 2019, the Starship hopper's
nose section was toppled over by strong winds. According to Musk, the
propellant systems needed for flight were undamaged, but the nose
section will take a few weeks to repair.
Nomenclature
At
least as early as 2005, SpaceX had used the descriptor "BFR" for a
conceptual heavy-lift vehicle "far larger than the Falcon family of
vehicles,"
with a goal of 100 t (220,000 lb) to orbit. Beginning in mid-2013,
SpaceX referred to both the mission architecture and the vehicle as the
Mars Colonial Transporter.
By the time the large 12-meter diameter design was unveiled in
September 2016, SpaceX had begun referring to the overall system as the Interplanetary Transport System and the launch vehicle itself as the ITS launch vehicle.
With the announcement of a new 9-meter design in September 2017, SpaceX resumed referring to the vehicle as "BFR". Musk said in the announcement "we are searching for the right name, but the code name, at least, is BFR." SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell subsequently stated that BFR stands for "Big Falcon Rocket". However, Elon Musk had explained in the past that although BFR is the official name, he drew inspiration from the BFG weapon in the Doom video games. The BFR has also occasionally been referred to informally by the media and internally at SpaceX as "Big Fucking Rocket". The upper stage is also the spaceship, or for a time in 2017–18 was referred to as "BFS". The booster first stage was also at times referred to as the "BFB". In November 2018, the spaceship was renamed Starship, and the first stage booster was named Super Heavy.
Notably, in the fashion of SpaceX, even that term super heavy had been previously used by SpaceX in a different context. In February 2018, at about the time of the first Falcon Heavy
launch, Musk had "suggested the possibility of a Falcon Super Heavy—a
Falcon Heavy with extra boosters. 'We could really dial it up to as much
performance as anyone could ever want. If we wanted to we could
actually add two more side boosters and make it Falcon Super Heavy.'"
Description
The SpaceX next-generation launch vehicle design combines several elements that, according to Musk, will make long-duration, beyond Earth orbit
(BEO) spaceflights possible. The design is projected by SpaceX to
reduce the per-ton cost of launches to low Earth orbit (LEO) and of
transportation between BEO destinations. It will also serve all use cases for the conventional LEO market. This will allow SpaceX to focus the majority of their development resources on the next-generation launch vehicle.
The fully reusable super-heavy-lift Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) will consist of two main parts: a reusable booster stage, named Super Heavy and a reusable second stage with an integrated payload section, named Starship.
Combining the second-stage of a launch vehicle with a
long-duration spaceship will be a unique type of space mission
architecture. This architecture is dependent on the success of orbital
refueling.
Major characteristics of the launch vehicle include:
- Both stages are designed to be completely reusable, with the booster returning to land on the launch mount while the second-stage/spaceship will have the ability to return to near the launch mount. Both will use retropropulsive landing and the reusable launch vehicle technologies developed earlier by SpaceX.
- The full Starship-Super Heavy stack will stretch 118 m (387 ft), 25 m (82 ft) taller than the Statue of Liberty.
First stage: Super Heavy
Super Heavy,
the first stage, or booster, of the SpaceX next-generation launch
vehicle is 63 meters (207 ft) long and 9 m (30 ft) in diameter and
expected to have a gross liftoff mass of 3,065,000 kg (6,757,000 lb) It is to be constructed of stainless steel tanks and structure, holding subcooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen (CH
4/LOX) propellants, powered by 31 Raptor rocket engines providing 61.8 MN (13,900,000 lbf) total liftoff thrust. The booster is projected to return to land on the launch mount, although it might land on legs initially.
4/LOX) propellants, powered by 31 Raptor rocket engines providing 61.8 MN (13,900,000 lbf) total liftoff thrust. The booster is projected to return to land on the launch mount, although it might land on legs initially.
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Artistic rendition of Starship separating from Super Heavy during launch.
Second stage and spaceship: Starship
Starship is a reusable spacecraft
that also serves as the launch vehicle second stage with an integrated
payload section. It is planned to be built in at least three operational
versions, with a number of limited-function prototype test articles will also be built. The operational version will include:
- spaceship: a large, long-duration spacecraft capable of carrying passengers or cargo to interplanetary destinations, to LEO, or between destinations on Earth.
- tanker: a cargo-only propellant tanker to support the refilling of propellants in Earth orbit. The tanker will enable launching a heavy spacecraft to interplanetary space as the spacecraft being refueled can use its tanks twice, first to reach LEO and afterwards to leave Earth orbit. This design reaches a Delta-v similar to three-stage rockets without needing the corresponding large mass fractions.
- satellite delivery spacecraft: a vehicle with a large cargo bay door that can open in space to facilitate the placement of spacecraft into orbit, or the recovery of spacecraft and space debris.
Major characteristics of the operational Starships will include:
- full and rapid reusability of the vehicle
- automated Rendezvous and docking operations
- on-orbit propellant transfers from Starship tankers to Starship spaceships or cargo spaceships
- stainless steel structure and tank construction
- a novel thermal protection system for hypersonic atmospheric reentry utilizing a double stainless-steel skin with active transpiration cooling
- a pressurized volume of approximately 1,000 m3 (35,000 cu ft), which could be configured for up to 40 cabins, large common areas, central storage, a galley, and a solar storm shelter for Mars missions plus 12 unpressurized aft cargo containers of 88 m3 (3,100 cu ft) total.
Launch vehicle specifications and performance
Component
Attribute |
Overall launch vehicle (booster + ship) |
Super Heavy (booster) | Starship (spaceship/tanker/ sat-delivery vehicle) |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEO payload | 100,000+ kg (220,000+ lb) |
| |
| Return payload | 50,000 kg (110,000 lb) | ||
| Cargo volume | 1,088+ m3 (38,400+ cu ft) | N/A | 1,000+ m3 (35,000+ cu ft) (pressurized) 88 m3 (3,100 cu ft) (unpressurized) |
| Diameter | 9 m (30 ft) | ||
| Length | 118 m (387 ft) | 63 m (207 ft) | 55 m (180 ft) |
| Maximum mass | 4,400,000 kg (9,700,000 lb) |
|
1,335,000 kg (2,943,000 lb) |
| Propellant capacity |
|
|
CH 4 – 240,000 kg (530,000 lb) |
| O 2 – 860,000 kg (1,900,000 lb) | |||
| Empty mass |
|
|
85,000 kg (187,000 lb) |
| Engines |
|
31 × Sea level Raptors | 7 × Sea level Raptors |
| Thrust |
|
52.7 MN (11,800,000 lbf) | 11.9 MN (2,700,000 lbf) total |
The Raptor engine design chamber pressure is 25 MPa (250 bar; 3,600 psi), although SpaceX plans to increase that to 30 MPa (300 bar; 4,400 psi) in later iterations of the engine. The engine will be designed with an extreme focus on reliability for any single engine
and "seven engines means it's definitely capable of [mitigating] engine
out at any time, including two engine out, in almost all circumstances.
So you could lose two engines and still be totally safe. In fact, [in]
some cases you can lose up to four engines and still be totally fine. So
it only needs three engines for landing; three out of seven." In this way, the ship is being designed to achieve "landing reliability that is on par with the safest commercial airliners."
Starship prototypes
SpaceX is building at least two Starship prototype vehicles to use as test articles for integrated system testing of various aspects of the technology that makes up Starship. The low-altitude, low-velocity Starship test flight rocket will be used for initial integrated testing of the Raptor rocket engine with a flight-capable propellant structure, and will test the newly-designed autogenous pressurization system that is replacing traditional helium
tank pressurization as well as initial launch and landing algorithms
for the much larger 9-meter-diameter rocket. SpaceX originally
developed their reusable booster technology for the 3-meter-diameter Falcon 9 in 2012–2018. It will also be the platform for the first flight tests of the full-flow staged combustion methalox
Raptor engines, where the hopper vehicle is expected to be flight
tested with up to three engines to facilitate engine-out tolerance
testing.
The high-altitude, high-velocity Starship orbital prototype will be used to develop and flight test novel thermal protection systems and hypersonic reentry control surfaces. The orbital prototype is expected to be outfitted with more than three Raptor engines.
The construction of the initial test article—the "Starship test flight rocket" or "test hopper" or "Starhopper"—was begun in early December 2018 and the external frame and skin was complete by 10 January 2019.
The test article will be used to flight test a number of subsystems of the Starship and will be used to expand the flight envelope as this radically unusual reusable Starship second stage and spaceship continues in design, build and test for the next several years.
Testing will commence at the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site near Boca Chica, Texas, with the initial testing of the low-velocity prototype anticipated as early as March, approximately one year ahead of schedule.
All test flights of the "test hopper" will be low altitude, under 5 kilometers (16,000 ft).
A Starship orbital prototype test article, also referred to as the "Starship Mk I orbital design," is currently being built, with component build starting in December 2018,
and vehicle structure construction starting in February 2019. Planned
for high-altitude and high-velocity testing, it is expected to be
completed by June 2019.
The orbital prototype will be taller than the suborbital hopper, have thicker skins, and a smoothly curving nose section.
Applications
The
Big Falcon Rocket launch vehicle is designed to replace all existing
SpaceX vehicles and spacecraft: Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch
vehicles, and also the Dragon capsule. SpaceX estimates that BFR
launches will be cheaper than the existing fleet, and even cheaper than
the retired Falcon 1, due to full reusability and precision landing of the booster on its launch mount for simplified launch logistics. SpaceX intends to fully replace its vehicle fleet with BFRs during the early 2020s.
BFR is planned to execute five diverse flight use cases:
- legacy Earth-orbit satellite delivery market
- long-duration spaceflights in the cislunar region
- Mars transportation, both as cargo ships as well as passenger-carrying transport
- long-duration flights to the outer planets, for cargo and astronauts
- commercial long-haul transport on Earth, competing with long-range aircraft. Although both CEO Musk and COO Shotwell have mentioned the potential ability of BFR to carry passengers on suborbital flights between any two points on Earth in under one hour, SpaceX have announced no concrete plans to pursue this use case. Nevertheless, the technology possibilities shown by SpaceX have surfaced theoretical transportation options that could potentially fill previously unfilled niches of transport across the globe, and analysts continue to debate the economic value of such high-speed, high-capacity cargo and passenger transportation means.
Lunar flyby tour
Artistic rendition of Starship firing all 7 of its engines while passing by the Moon
In September 2018, SpaceX announced that it signed a contract to fly a group of private passengers around the Moon aboard Starship. In addition of the pilots, this lunar flyby will be crewed by Yusaku Maezawa, who will invite 6 to 8 artists to travel with him around the Moon in 2023. The expected travel time would be about 6 days.
Transport to Mars and Mars surface ship use
SpaceX plans to eventually build a crewed base on Mars for an
extended surface presence, which they hope will grow one day into a
self-sufficient colony.
Any Mars expeditions would refuel Starships in low Earth orbit before departing for Mars.
Early ships would be left on Mars to house equipment, store
propellant, or provide spare parts. Eventually, once humans travel to
Mars, at least one of the reusable Starships from earlier flights would
be capable of being refueled to provide a redundant spare spacecraft for
a return journey to Earth.
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