SpaceX Starship

Starship is an American two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle under development by aerospace company SpaceX. It is the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. Starship is intended to be fully reusable, allowing both stages to be recovered after a mission and to be rapidly reused.

The Starship launch vehicle is designed to supplant SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, expand SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, and launch crews to both low Earth orbit and Mars. The vehicle is fundamental to SpaceX's ambition of colonizing Mars. SpaceX plans to use Starship vehicles as tankers, refueling other Starships to allow missions to geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A planned lunar lander variant of Starship was contracted by NASA to land astronauts on the Moon as part of the Artemis program for at least two Artemis lunar landings, starting with Artemis 3 in 2026.

Starship consists of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. Both stages are powered by Raptor engines, which burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Both stages are constructed primarily of stainless steel, instead of the carbon composite used in a series of prior designs. The booster is designed to use its engines to slow itself down, before being caught by a pair of mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. The Starship spacecraft is designed to be protected during atmospheric reentry by its thermal protection system, and it is able to land using a 'belly flop' maneuver, where the spacecraft turns from a horizontal to a vertical orientation.

SpaceX has stated that a long-term goal for the Starship system is to achieve frequent space launches at low cost. Development follows an iterative and incremental approach involving test flights of prototype vehicles which are often destructive. The first flight test of the full Starship system took place on 20 April 2023, lifting-off with three engines out and ending four minutes after launch due to a loss of control, resulting in the destruction of the launch vehicle. The second flight test of the vehicle took place on 18 November 2023, achieving stage separation with the Super Heavy booster exploding roughly 30 seconds later following multiple engine failures during its boostback burn. The upper stage was lost nearly eight minutes after launch prior to reaching orbit.

The development of Starship has resulted in several lawsuits against the FAA and SpaceX from environmental groups. Some conservationists have expressed concern over the impact of Starship's development in Boca Chica, Texas on species like the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea-turtle, nearby wildlife habitats and national-refuge land.