The first full test with Starship ended with a bang, but also with many congratulations and open bottles of champagne. SpaceX is not an ordinary company, and its ambitions are huge, so this test was not seen as a disaster. What awaits Elon Musk’s mega-rocket? What stages must be overcome so that a person can live on other heavenly bodies?

A failure that can be interpreted as a small victory

It was surprising to many people that even though the Starship system exploded during the first test of the full formula, SpaceX employees cheered as a victory and there were many congratulatory messages.

Much attention was paid to the good side: the rocket could be launched, flew for almost four minutes, and “tons” of data could be analyzed so that future prototypes could be better and fly longer.

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It was also said that the fact that the launch pad wasn’t destroyed was a big plus, but things weren’t so good here, and the force of the launch damaged the pad and revealed the absence of a number of very useful systems.

In a small town located almost 10 km from the launch site, windows were broken and huge columns of dust were formed. The FAA has opened an investigation, and the next launch is likely to take place in the fall, once new permits are obtained.

What is in store for SpaceX?

The company will need to repair the damage to the launch pad and get FAA approval for the next orbital test, in order to determine exactly what went wrong during the April 20 test (which systems failed, which did not work).

In the next test, Elon Musk and his people hope that the super heavy rocket and Starship will stay in space even longer. Less than three minutes after launch, the two mega-elements should separate and go their separate ways. In the next test, SpaceX will also not collect any of the elements, but hopes that they will successfully separate and reach the ocean (Super Heavy eight minutes after launch, Starship 90 minutes).

The 50-meter-long Starship stage, equipped with six Raptor engines, should enter Earth orbit in the fall of 2023 or, more likely, conduct a test. this should happen in early 2024. If Starship reaches orbit, another critical “threshold” will be for the heat shield to withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius after re-entry.

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Falcon 9 rockets, which are launched every few days with satellites, return and can be reused because they land using “legs”. A Super Heavy rocket will not be able to use such a system, because it is much larger, the legs will add a lot of weight and may give way on rebound. A different recovery mechanism was developed for the Super Heavy: the rocket returns to the launch pad, decelerates almost completely, and is grabbed by a giant mechanical arm.

It’s going to be a tense moment after all goes well with the Starship test and we get to the point where we see the arm grab the rocket and place it nicely for later use. I hope we will reach this level by 2024.

Even further into the future will be the time of reference when the first in-orbit fuel test will be performed. When a rocket launches, it uses up almost all of its fuel in the first few minutes, so if humans are to go on longer missions to the moon – and in the future to Mars – a lot of fuel will be needed.

Refueling is also a very complex business on Earth, as demonstrated by the launch attempts of NASA’s SLS rocket from the Artemis 1 mission. We can imagine what a technological super-achievement it would be to refuel a rocket in orbit with fuel and an oxidizer tank (“fuel depot”).

These “on-orbit refueling” technologies would mean that the Starship rocket would need to be launched into orbit and placed there as a fuel “tank”. Then another mega-rocket, designed for a complex mission, will have to collide with the first rocket.

Docking between space modules has been going on for some time, and generally everything is going well, as evidenced by the missions on the SSI. Transferring hundreds of thousands of liters of liquid fuel into orbit between spacecraft will be much more difficult.

This in-space refueling system will be essential for missions planned after 2026, when astronauts will need to be launched into lunar orbit by rocket and then reach the lunar surface by lander. Many gas stations will be needed, and we can imagine how dense the network of space “gas stations” will have to be when the first humans are sent to Mars.

Three manned missions

The Starship exploded during this first test, with no crew on board. Once the technical issues are largely resolved, the Starship system will carry humans on board, and three manned missions are planned: “dearMoon,” the first mission in the Polaris program, and another mission due to launch in 2030, a mission about we know very little (Dennis Tito, who in 2001 became the first space tourist, bought a ticket for himself and his wife).

The first will be “dearMoon,” a mission funded by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. In the best-case scenario, an eight-day mission would launch in 2024, and nine people would spend eight days on board, including three days around the moon. The capsule will approach the surface of the Moon by 200 km. This flight will be the first manned flight around the moon since 1972. There will be NO landing on the moon either.

Another interesting chapter would be, if it materializes, a program called Polaris. ​Jared Isaacman, a billionaire who spent three days in Earth orbit in a SpaceX Dragon capsule, will finance a program called Polaris, which will consist of three flights, the first of which is also planned to be an extravehicular event, that is, the first exit of an amateur astronaut to “walk” through space. It will be the riskiest thing a space tourist has ever attempted. The program will be carried out together with SpaceX, and the third flight in a few years will be carried out by the Starship megarocket. SpaceX will make three flights, including two with the Dragon capsule and one with Starship.

Why SpaceX has reasons for optimism

SpaceX has a lot to be optimistic about, and the company is in the best position to explore space for years to come. And with the Falcon 9, there were problems at first, but SpaceX often launches satellites and makes money from it. There were many doubts about the Dragon capsule, but it has already managed to deliver astronauts to the SSI several times.

SpaceX has the most spaceflight experience of any private company, far behind Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Elon Musk’s company is indispensable to NASA because it will have to provide the module with which people will return to the moon, and the Starship rocket will play an important role in future missions. If all goes well, SpaceX has high hopes of winning new contracts from the US government.

But it remains to be seen when SpaceX will solve all the technical problems of Starship, because the entire “calendar” of launches depends on it, and there may be many delays.

Then SpaceX has reasons for optimism, because it has an active assembly line on which five superheavy accelerators and eight Starships are being prepared.

It is worth trying as many times as possible, because the “grand prize” is a reusable rocket, this can dramatically reduce the cost of launching and the cost of sending various payloads into orbit.

The big promises are that Starship will be able to carry 100-150 tons of cargo into orbit, while the Falcon Heavy can carry a maximum of 64 tons and NASA’s Space Shuttle a maximum of 24 tons.

There will be another chapter where SpaceX can play an important role in the so-called “space economy” – space mining of rare metals. It’s a topic that’s been talked about for decades, but it’s still far from being a reality.

In a few decades, extracting frozen water from the moon, processing it into oxygen and hydrogen, which can then be used to produce rocket fuel, could become a business. It would be a huge cost-saver if the rocket could be refueled on the moon for long-range missions.

Studies have been published on how mining could be done on the moon with the technology we have now, but adapted to lunar conditions. Similar operations will not be started for more than 10-15 years.

The Guadalajara moment and man as an “interplanetary being”

Elon Musk often exaggerates, sometimes speaks aberrations, but one thing is clear: SpaceX is a soul project for him, as evidenced by many things he has said about the company over the years. Musk has invested a lot in SpaceX, but he wants to make money from this company, and he is achieving this through increasingly frequent satellite launches.

The development of SpaceX is of symbolic and financial importance to Elon Musk, and he has repeatedly proved it. Before this latest test, Elon Musk did something rare: in his publications and in interviews, he tried to restrain optimism about the Starship test. He also said that an explosion was very possible.

In September 2016 in Guadalajara, Mexico, Musk held a conference that generated a lot of interest, and this is not surprising, because he presented his vision of how people will reach Mars and how they can establish colonies.

Musk said that SpaceX will first launch the Heavy Falcon rocket, a giant with 27 engines that will be able to carry the first humans to Mars, followed by a huge “transporter” 120 meters high, with 42 engines and the ability to carry 100 people. speed 101,000 km/h. This was the first reference to what will be called Starship in 2018.

At the time, Musk said he would like to see the first ships carrying cargo and supplies to Mars in 2022 or 2023, and the first humans in 2024. Musk has always been “generous” when it came to deadlines, and it can be assumed that the first humans will reach Mars much later than 2035.

Sources: Yhe Economist, New york Times, Reuters, AFP, TechCrunch, BBC, Le Monde, CNET, Financial Times, Washington Post