SpaceX launched astronauts for the first time
barely a week ago but CEO Elon Musk does not
want the company resting on its laurels.
Following the successful launch of the Crew
Dragon capsule to the ISS, SpaceX boss Elon
Musk has laid out the company’s strategy.
In a company email, Musk urged SpaceX employees
to accelerate progress on its next-generation
Starship ‘dramatically and immediately’,
a week after its historic first crewed mission
to the International Space Station (ISS).
Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart
from anything that could reduce Dragon return
risk) to be Starship,’ Musk wrote on 6th
June, Saturday in the email.
His space company launched a pair of NASA
astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley
on a 19 hours journey to the ISS on May 30,
marking a historic first for SpaceX and a
crucial step forward for the U.S. space program.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule
carried the astronauts to orbit and on to
the International Space Station.
That mission is ongoing, as Musk noted, with
the spacecraft set to return the astronauts
to Earth in the next couple months.
While Falcon 9 currently operates as SpaceX’s
workhorse rocket for its cargo, satellite,
and now astronaut missions, Musk evidently
feels it’s time to double down on efforts
to develop the 120-meter-tall SpaceX Starship
launch system, which comprises the Starship
spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket that will
carry it into orbit.
In this video Engineering Today will discuss
why Elon Musk Tells SpaceX to Focus On Mars-Bound
Starship Spacecraft ‘Dramatically and Immediately’
Let’s get into details.
SpaceX is now turning back to its primary
aim of carrying humans and commercial cargo
to ‘the Moon, Mars and beyond’.
The Falcon 9 rocket that launched the astronauts
is the mainstay of SpaceX’s business, with
85 missions over the past decade.
Its Falcon 9 rockets are partially reusable,
as the company often lands the large “booster”
stage of the rocket and recovers the rocket’s
nosecone.
But SpaceX eventually wants to replace both
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with Starship, which
should reduce costs by unifying its production
lines and offering full reusability.
Musk’s goal is to make SpaceX Starship fully
reusable vehicle that can support both crew
and cargo configurations— envisioning a
rocket that is more akin to a commercial airplane,
with short turnaround times between flights
and that can make trips to both Earth orbit
and deep space destinations including the
Moon and Mars, when paired with the forthcoming
SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster.
Musk last year unveiled the SpaceX Starship
prototype, built of stainless steel and dwarfing
the company’s existing spacecraft.
SpaceX is developing Starship with the goal
of launching as many as 100 people at a time
on missions to the moon and Mars.
So far, Starship has been in development at
a SpaceX production and testing site in Boca
Chica, Texas, since 2019, and was also originally
being developed by a second team in parallel
in Florida.
SpaceX combined the efforts and focused prototype
builds in Texas late last year, and has been
building a number of SpaceX Starship prototypes
using a model of rapid iteration.
While SpaceX has made progress on each iteration,
development of the Starship has met with a
number of challenges.
So far SpaceX Starship prototype succumbed
to some failure during testing, either of
its fuel compartments during pressure testing,
or, most recently, shortly after a static
fire test of its engine.
During the recent dramatic test firing of
the craft’s attached raptor engine on May
29, the company’s fourth major prototype
(dubbed SN4), went out in a blaze of glory.
This lucky prototype had survived more rounds
of testing than previous iterations, but still,
the loss of the craft is a bit of a setback
for SpaceX.
'Unfortunately what we thought was going to
be a minor test of a quick disconnect ended
up being a big problem,' Musk told, referring
to the explosion.
Now “We need to accelerate Starship progress,”
Musk said in Saturday’s email.
SpaceX will pick up Starship testing once
more with SN5, the fifth prototype of Starship,
which is expected to begin this week.
SpaceX is now assembling the SN5 to continue
it’s testing – even while SN6 and SN7
are also under construction.
Musk’s emphasis on SpaceX Starship comes
nine months after a controversial comment
by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, just
before SpaceX unveiled the latest prototype.
The NASA chief declared his agency wanted
“to see the same level of enthusiasm”
for SpaceX launching NASA astronauts as there
was for the Starship program, saying it was
“time to deliver.”
At the time, Musk said “From a SpaceX resource
standpoint, our resources are overwhelmingly
on Falcon and Dragon, It was really quite
a small percentage of SpaceX on Starship,
less than 5% of the company, basically.
The really hard part that requires a lot of
resources is optimizing something, and bringing
it into volume production.
To be clear, the vast majority of our resources
are on Dragon and Falcon, especially Crew
Dragon.”
Now, with SpaceX having delivered on the first
part of its commitment to fly NASA astronauts,
Musk is turning the company’s attention
to Starship.
SpaceX has raised nearly $1.7 billion since
the beginning of 2019, with its valuation
rising to around $36 billion.
The company has steadily raised funding as
its developed three ambitious programs: the
Crew Dragon spacecraft, its Starlink internet
satellites and the massive Starship rocket.
The SpaceX Starship program has seen prototypes
pass several critical milestones but SpaceX
has yet to begin flight testing its most recent
design.
The completed launch vehicle won't be ready
until 2022 at the very earliest, although
it has completed several successful 'hop tests'
involving tethered launches and landings.
Musk confirmed on Twitter that he plans to
stick to his ambitious launch schedule of
firing the first ships towards Mars by 2022.
These missions will haul cargo designed to
support future manned missions to the Red
Planet.
Musk previously said the lifetime of each
SpaceX Starship will be around 20 to 30 years,
'like an aircraft'.
Around three Starship flights will launch
from Earth per day, or around 1,000 flights
a year, and each will have a capacity of more
than 90,000 pounds.
By continuously ferrying people the 180 million
miles to Mars, Musk is predicting 1,000 human
inhabitants by 2030 and 'maybe around' one
million by 2050.
Musk thinks each Starship mission could launch
for $2 million, with an individual ticket
'one day costing less than $500,000' and 'maybe
even below $100,000.
Speaking at SXSW, the billionaire hinted that
people whose bank balance is in the red will
also be allowed to live on the Red Planet.
It’s unclear whether they would actually
want to do this because life on Mars is likely
to be pretty rubbish at first.
According to Musk, time is against us.
He responded to a tweet suggesting that in
a few billion years the sun will explode and
Earth will be decimated.
Of course, so will Mars, but that’s beside
the point.
That’s when all life on Earth will be boiled
off.
He tweeted on 4th June, Thursday.
What matters is how long civilization is capable
of making the jump to Mars.
This could be a very short period of time
measured in decades.
It took 4.5 billion years to get to this point
& civilization isn’t looking super stable.
SpaceX continues to build up its facility
in Boca Chica, an area along the Gulf of Mexico
at the most southern part of the U.S. and
Mexico border in Texas.
Musk noted that he’s often been on site
at Boca Chica recently and continues to do
so.
On Saturday he tweeted an aerial view of the
complex, showing its growing array of production
tents and rocket manufacturing bays.
Musk says in the email that SpaceX employees
should “consider spending significant time”
in Boca Chica development site to help further
accelerate Starship development.
The company now has a bit more time pressure
driving SpaceX Starship’s development, since
it was selected as one of three suppliers
for NASA’s human lunar lander contracts,
with Starship intended to act as a last-mile
transportation system for taking astronauts
from NASA’s Lunar Gateway to the surface
of the Moon.
SpaceX has about 8,000 employees, most of
whom are at the company’s Los Angeles area
headquarters or its facilities at Cape Canaveral,
Florida or near Austin, Texas.
Musk’s email implied that the company is
seeking to incentivize employees to move to
Texas from California and Florida.
“For those considering moving, we will always
offer a dedicated SpaceX aircraft to shuttle
people,” Musk wrote.
SpaceX owns and operates at least one private
jet, as the company has charged Tesla $200,000
for use of its private jet in the first quarter
of 2020.
But the extraordinary relocation offer underlines
how crucial Musk sees the SpaceX Starship
project.
The company’s Boca Chica team is already
working nearly around the clock but Musk wants
more, urging SpaceX employees to help Starship
development progress even more quickly.
There’s still a long way to go of course,
and whether it will actually be successful
is anyone’s guess.
For the time being at least, however, Musk
is putting SpaceX’s full might behind it.
