Elon Musk will tell more about the plans of his space company SpaceX with Starship, the rocket that will eventually take people to Mars.
Watch the presentation:
Musk’s presentation will take place early on Friday morning, from 3 a.m. Dutch time. It is the first time since 2019 that the boss of space company SpaceX is giving a presentation about Starship, which he called “essential for building camps on the moon and cities on Mars.”
full stack
During the presentation, Musk will tell more about the ‘full stack’ Starship, or a fully stacked Starship. This means that Starship will be linked to the Super Heavy Booster , the enormous lower rocket stage that should provide Starship with enough thrust to go into space. The colossus is therefore about 120 meters high.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2022
It is not yet possible to send the full stack into space. The reason for this is that the American aviation authority FAA has yet to prepare an environmental report to determine whether Starship can go into the air.
That report is currently scheduled for February 28. The first test flight in space may already take place in March.
The “Chopsticks,” giant mechanical arms on the launch tower, made the “full stack” on Thursday , Musk showed on Twitter . According to experts, the Chopsticks will ensure that SpaceX will no longer depend on cranes to stack its rocket, which would be a big step forward to be able to operate in bad weather conditions.
During the presentation, Musk will probably discuss future plans with Starship. This way he can announce when he expects Starship to transport people for the first time.
He can also provide a timeline for the complete transition to Starship as a launch pad. Currently, SpaceX uses variants of the Falcon 9 as a workhorse. The Falcon 9 became known for its independently landing booster, which makes the rocket partly reusable, but with Starship Musk wants to make a fully reusable platform.
Musk will probably also tell more about the plans to go to the moon and later to Mars. SpaceX was commissioned last year to design a lunar lander for NASA , with Musk beating rival Jeff Bezos.