SpaceX
Here’s the SpaceX Starship Development Roadmap – Size and Performance Upgrades
SpaceX has shared a development roadmap for the future generations of Starship space launch vehicles, revealing their potential size and performance improvements.
New information revealed during the The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary address by SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk, shared vital specifications of the upcoming Starships.
Here are the three versions:
- Current generation
- Next-gen
- Future generation
SpaceX Starship Development Roadmap
Current generation
The current generation of Starship, mentioned in the presentation, has a total 121 meters height including 50 meters for the ship and 71 meters for the booster. However, the company has recently introduced a next-gen ship, which is 52 meters tall, and was also employed during Flight 9.
The booster is equipped with 3,400 tons of propellant capacity and generates 7,590 tf of thrust. The second stage has 1,500 tons of propellant capacity and 1,500 tf of thrust.
Next-gen Starship
This Starship is going to be 124.4 meters tall, including a 52.1-meter ship and a 72.3-meter booster. Its first stage will have 3650 tons of propellant capacity and 8240 tf thrust generation along with an integrated hot-staging ring, specifically designed to facilitate the separation while retaining the hardware, so it could come back to Earth with the booster. Its upper stage will have 1550 propellant capacity and generate 1600 tf of thrust.
Future Generation Starship
This Starship will increase integrated flight height to 142 meters, including a 61-meter ship and an 81-meter super heavy booster. Its booster’s propellant capacity could go over 4 tons and 10000 tf of thrust. That will be a massive upgrade for the integrated flight, but it isn’t coming anytime soon.
Launch date
The next-gen ship is expected to launch somewhere later this year. It’s mentioned that the ship will have the power and capabilities to reach Mars, which will be attempted next year as soon as the Earth to Mars transit window opens. This will also be able to perform seamless ship-to-ship propellant transfer.
Meanwhile, there’s no other information available about the future Starship and its manufacturing.
