On February 11, 2022, Elon Musk unveiled the latest developments for the next generation of Starship at an event in Boca Chica, Texas. This global future interstellar vehicle is key to Musk's planned missions throughout the year. At the same time, he also announced the mission schedule for the coming year. Musk expects SpaceX to make about 50 launches this year, about once a week.
What are the highlights of the latest generation of starships? What does Musk want to do in 2022?
The whole event was full of dry goods, and Musk's mouth was gushing endlessly. He stressed it again
The need for humans to become a multi-planet species, and even to get out of the solar system. Starships will take us to the moon, Mars, and those far-flung places beyond the solar system.
What are the highlights of the latest generation of starships?
First, the Raptor 2 engine.
It's the core of a super heavy rocket, the Raptor 2 has 230 tons of thrust, and Musk says it should be able to raise to 250 tons. Multiple Raptor 2s are bundled together to form the rocket's power source. The 69-meter-high behemoth on the launcher is the super-heavy rocket of the future, and the starship makes up the starship, with a total height of 120 meters. The carrying capacity in low Earth orbit is 100-150 tons, and the interstellar carrying capacity (to Mars) is not less than 10 tons. It has twice the thrust of today's largest launch vehicle, Saturn 5, and will be the strongest and most efficient rocket ever built. On the left side of the picture is the Raptor 2 engine, which is much simpler than the Raptor 1, and the thrust is also 2.3 to 2.5 times that of the Raptor 1. Raptor 2 has a relatively serious combustion chamber melting problem, which is the biggest problem that SpaceX is currently facing, and it is also Musk's current main work. Musk then said that components such as raptor 2's turbomachinery, combustion chamber, nozzles and electronics have been upgraded. On the mechanical side, the rotating parts are more robust, the internal pipes are welded to each other, not connected by flanges, and different cooling methods are being tested to prevent the combustion chamber from melting. Currently, SpaceX can build an average of 1 Raptor rocket engine a day.
Second, "chopsticks" recycling robotic arms
SpaceX uses two "chopstick-like" robotic arms to recover rocket boosters from the launch tower. Musk said that "the number of future starships will be greater than the number of super heavy rocket boosters." Although the booster is large, it can theoretically fly once an hour and return to space within 6 minutes. This allows the tower to be launched and recovered quickly, with equipment overhauls and refueling ready for re-takeoff. Starships can be launched again every 6-8 hours, and the launch density of starships will be greatly increased, which can be benchmarked against current aircraft.
Third, the speed of starship manufacturing
Compared with the current one-day raptor engine, Musk's shipbuilding plan is more ambitious and fast. "Our goal is to build at least one [starship and rocket] combination every month, and we may eventually achieve our goal of building a starship every three days," he said. "The pace is comparable to the U.S. victory plan during World War II, and even ambitious." This will be a rewrite of the rules of the entire space industry, it will greatly reduce the cost of spacecraft manufacturing, and it can be recycled and reused, which will relatively reduce the increasingly serious space garbage.
Fourth, ultra-fast starship flight tests
Musk said the approval process has reached the environmental assessment stage of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and that the starship's first flight test could be approved in March. Musk optimistically expects the starship to be launched into orbit by the end of the year.
Fifth, the cost of space travel will be greatly compressed
NASA bought a seat on a Russian proton rocket to the International Space Station, which costs about $100 million, and the cost of human access to space is quite high. In the future, the manufacturing cost of each starship will be several million DOLLARs, and the cost per launch will be less than $10 million. Each starship can take 100 people to the sky, and space travel within $100,000 will no longer be far away. In terms of economic benefits, Musk has great expectations for SpaceX, he mentioned that "before space exploration was too expensive mainly non-recyclable, in time, SpaceX input-output ratio will be a hundred times the order of magnitude."
What will Musk do in 2022?
Build the city of Mars
With a super bull rocket, of course, we must first realize our own bold words of landing on Mars in 2024, and first turn our own bragging bull into reality. In 2022, a space refueling mothership could be launched to refuel the starship in low-Earth orbit. It is also possible to launch two unmanned cargo ships to Mars, providing energy, mining technology and life support systems for future spacecraft, and is likely to bring Perseverance to the oxygen prototype on Mars.
Following the event, SpaceX released the latest video of the super dazzling starship landing on Mars. Musk said, "It is expected to transport 1 million tons of cargo to low Earth orbit a year, like Mars to transport 150,000 tons of cargo, but humans land on Mars to establish a self-sufficient 'Mars City', which requires about 1 million tons of cargo security." ”
The plan for the future is even more ambitious, in 2024, the completion of the manned landing on Mars. Before 2050, it will take 9 years to send 1 million people to Mars. Turning humans into multi-planetary species. In the future, 1,000 starships will be launched to Mars every year, an average of 3 times a day, and flights will be realized, which is quite cheap and convenient for both immigration and tourism.
With reliable and high-load vehicles, a variety of applications are at your fingertips, such as
The starship will carry out the launch mission of the Starlink satellite
The total number of Starlink satellites is more than 42,000, such a huge number even in the integration of miniaturization, light liftoff is also a big expense, if Starship can really do each liftoff cost control below 10 million US dollars, it will greatly reduce the investment in networking, a lot of satellites can be launched at a time. Starship + Starlink also heralds the combination of wireless communication + space transportation, and the Starlink Internet will be spread throughout every place in the space journey.
NASA's manned space mission in preparation for the Artemis program
Starship will provide it with vital lunar orbital supplies
"Dear Moon" private travel mission around the moon
In 2023, Japanese billionaire Tomosaku Maezawa will travel around the moon with artists of his choice on a starship. However, with less than 24 months to go until the end of 2023, SpaceX seems to have a lot of work to do.
Musk concluded that SpaceX has successfully launched 144 times in the past two years, of which 106 have successfully landed. Most of the failed explosions exploded, blowing up a total of 10 starships. Musk describes it this way: Landing on Mars makes humans a multi-planetary species sounds wonderful, but the hardships are like this: We seem to see demons knocking at the door at any moment.