SpaceX tests the flight of the Starship today: the largest rocket ever

Elon Musk’s company that developed the rocket has been working on the mega spacecraft for years. Musk presented plans for the rocket in 2017 and called the ship Big Fucking Rocket. This was later changed to Big Falcon Rocket.

120 meters high

The large rocket is almost 120 meters high. It’s 10 meters taller than the Saturn V, the rocket that took people to the moon between 1968 and 1972.

The newest rocket is also twice as tall as space shuttles and almost three times taller than the Soyuz rocket that carried Dutch astronaut André Kuipers into space.

Between 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

The Starship can be launched today between 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Dutch time. This is done from SpaceX’s own space base in the US state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.

The lower part is the seventy-meter-long Super Heavy booster, with the engines that must ensure the take-off of the rocket. Once this work is completed, the launcher will dive into the Gulf of Mexico.

spaceship capsule

The fifty-meter Starship capsule, in which people will then have to sit, flies next.

The route is as follows: the rocket will cross the Atlantic Ocean, Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean, Indonesia and the Pacific Ocean. After an hour and a half and a nearly complete circle around the earth, it is to land in a controlled manner in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

At the end of 2018, SpaceX chose the name Starship. The spacecraft will initially remain close to Earth, but there are plans to go to the Moon and Mars one day.

Seats already purchased on board

It is not yet known when the first manned flight with Starship will be carried out. The spacecraft is to take a sightseeing tour around the moon and return in years to come.

The seats on board were bought by a Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa. He goes there alone and wants to take DJ Steve Aoki with him.