Elon Musk admitted that after last week's start of Crew Dragon, now the highest priority in the company has become the construction of Starship. This new rocket is to be able to lift people to the moon, and sometime maybe to Mars.
In an email sent to SpaceX employees, Elon Musk announced that, apart from ensuring the safe return of Crew Dragon from the space station, all processing capacity is directed to the development of Starship.
A new rocket is currently being built and tested at the Boca Chica Complex in Texas. Elon Musk approached the development of the Starship project itself in an iterative way, i.e. instead of refining one prototype to perfection, it quickly builds its next versions, which are immediately tested. The conclusions of subsequent tests are taken into account in subsequent prototypes and in this way each subsequent prototype is getting closer to the target product.
What will Starship be?
Starship is to be a reusable vehicle that will be able to carry out manned and transport missions both to orbit and further access to the Solar System, e.g. to the Moon and Mars when it is launched into space using the Super Heavy rocket. In the future, SpaceX would like to replace all Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets with Starships, which would certainly reduce costs and unify production lines.
So far, all Starship prototypes have been destroyed during testing, including refueling the rocket, or ( recently ) just after the static Raptor engine test. SpaceX is currently completing the construction of the SN5 prototype, although the construction of SN6 and SN7 is already underway.
Elon Musk says: all hands to build Starship
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