By
Bena Ilyas
April 23rd, 2024
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told the employees that the top company’s priority, for now, will be the Starship spacecraft. However, he cautioned them on some risks that could endanger Dragon’s return.
After successfully launching and docking the Crew Dragon to the space station, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is now focusing his attention on the starship spacecraft. According to news outlet CNBC, Musk urged SpaceX employees via the company’s internal email to accelerate their progress on the Starship spacecraft.
“Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship,” the email read. According to the company’s mission, the starship program is meant to serve to the Earth orbit, to the Moon, to Mars and beyond.
Starship Spacecraft Design
The Starship is made up of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket, whereby they represent a fully reusable transportation system that is designed to carry both crew and cargo to space.
As a result, the program will become the most sophisticated and advanced space transport system ever built as it can carry over 100 metric tonnes to the Earth orbit. The designers of the Starship spacecraft built it with a height of 394 feet, and a diameter of around 30ft.
The idea behind the Starship is the need of transporting significant quantities of cargo and people to build cities on Mars. The Starship engineers used an in-space propellant transfer to make the craft reusable and efficient in space exploration.
With the Starship meant to launch its Moon fly in 2023, the lucky first private lunar passenger was announced to be Yusaku Maezawa. He is a fashion innovator and also a globally recognized art curator.
SpaceX Bright Future with Starship
SpaceX enjoys a wide variety of support from the government and also private investors. In the past year, the company raised nearly $1.7 billion that raised its valuation to around $36 billion. Besides the capital background, the company has access to top-notch engineers from Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) which is also headed by Elon Musk.
As a result of the collaboration with NASA, SpaceX has been able to advance on its projects much fast due to the experience brought on board.
Looking forward, commercial space exploration will be made possible by the company, hence making dreams a reality to most private space enthusiasts. Through a tweet on his page on June 7, Musk posted an aerial view of the Starship Production Complex Boca Chica, Texas, highlighting it as the gateway to Mars.
He further clarified to his followers that a giant high bay is coming soon for Super Heavy stacking, which will be around 81 meters.