SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is talking up his Starship Mk1 prototype super-rocket in Texas, less than a week in advance of an eagerly awaited update on his plans for Starship trips to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Today’s sneak preview came in a flurry of tweets addressing some of the finer design points for Starship Mk1, which looks like a silvery silo equipped with rocket fins as it sits at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in South Texas. The 30-foot-wide, roughly 150-foot-tall prototype — and a similar Mk2 structure taking shape at SpaceX’s site in Florida — are meant to blaze a trail for an even bigger two-stage rocket, with the pointy-ended Starship sitting atop a Super Heavy first-stage booster.
During a live-streamed presentation that’s set for Saturday at the Boca Chica site, Musk is expected to discuss plans for testing and flying the Starship system over the next few years.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has already struck a deal with SpaceX to take a Starship flight around the moon by the mid-2020s, and is reportedly planning to sell a multibillion-dollar stake in his fashion retail company to cover the cost.
Musk has said Starship (previously known as the BFR) could take on flights to Mars by the mid-2020s, plus crewed trips to the moon and supersonic point-to-point trips between destinations on Earth. He didn’t address those beyond-Earth visions in today’s tweets, but in a discussion with his followers, he did get into the nuts and bolts of Starship design — including what’s going to be packed inside the prototype’s nose cone, or fairing.
Musk also said there are some aspects of the design that he’s not yet “fully bought into.” Here’s how the Twitter thread spun out:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175812366019244032
https://twitter.com/SpaceXFan97/status/1175814497593962499
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175814780323545093
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175815628525060096
https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1175814187261583361
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175815930384924677
https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1175816448729669632
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175818733648003072
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175820322597232640
https://twitter.com/Kalzsom/status/1175821523954937857
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175822175913283584
https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1175822819416072192
https://twitter.com/CptnCrutch5373/status/1175823295977066497
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175824881927278597
https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1175825926149595136
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1175903306268454912
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1176007759751499776
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1176008450733744129
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1176009047729954818
Some of SpaceX’s fans shared their own pictures of the Starship Mk1, and hazarded guesses as to the rocket’s final design:
https://twitter.com/austinbarnard45/status/1175786279658827777
https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge/status/1174306552309661697
https://twitter.com/Alex_ADEdge/status/1174663408257363969
https://twitter.com/NuclearVee/status/1173140062072164355
https://twitter.com/human_Mars/status/1175806488826306560
https://twitter.com/RogerLewisHolt/status/1175583604082192384
This story was last updated at 10:44 p.m. PT Sept. 22 with additional tweets from Musk.