From "Trash Can" to Musk's Most Powerful Rocket Illustrating the Past and Present Life of "Starship"

In 2012, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk proposed an early concept of a starship, which was called the "Mars Colonial Transporter" at the time. Now, 11 years later, Musk’s dream is about to become a reality.

The following is a review of the past and present life of the starship through time and pictures and texts.How it grew from a trash can-shaped prototype to what is now the most powerful rocket on Earth.

What is a starship?

Combination of starship and super heavy rocket

Starship is a futuristic spacecraft stacked on a towering super-heavy rocket booster and is the world's first fully reusable launch system. Its delivery capacity exceeds that of any previous rocket and should be able to deliver more cargo to Earth orbit, the moon and Mars.

2016: Musk reveals first design

In 2016, Musk finally unveiled the long-awaited prototype design of SpaceX's most powerful rocket at an international space technology event. SpaceX called it the "Mars Colonization Transport System" when it first announced it, but since SpaceX is not just satisfied with colonizing Mars, the company called the first design the "Interplanetary Space Transporter" (Interplanetary Space Transporter).

Interstellar space transportation system in 2016

“This system really allows you to go where you want to go in the solar system,” Musk said at the time. Based on a 2016 design, the rocket uses a carbon fiber skin with expandable legs that can be deployed upon landing.

2017: Big Falcon

The Big Falcon adopts a three-fin design

By 2017, its design was starting to look more like the starship's final form. This version was named the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). The design was changed to look more like a Starship, with the landing legs gone and replaced by the typical arrow-like fins sticking out of the side of the rocket, with the number increased from two to three. The biggest difference between this design and the final version of the starship is that it's still made of carbon fiber. However, this quickly changed.

First prototype of 2019: Starworm

Starworm

The first starship prototype was not a real starship at all. The chunky spacecraft, known as Starhopper, was simply used to test the power of the Raptor engines SpaceX was developing for Starship. The little Starbug demonstrated the power of its Raptor engines in 2019, when it flew to an altitude of 492 feet (about 150 meters) and successfully landed.

2019: The first true prototype explodes

Musk announced the first true starship prototype Mk1 in 2019, but this design was unlucky. From the "Big Falcon" to the Mk1, the biggest difference in the starship is that it is made of steel. This material subsequently became the main choice for starships.

Starship Prototype Mk1

Musk also chose steel due to cost considerations. "Carbon fiber costs $135 per kilogram, and about 35% of it is discarded, so the cost of a fully used kilogram is close to $200. Steel costs $3 per kilogram," Musk told Popular Mechanics in 2019.

Musk then ambitiously announced that the Mk1 would be ready to take off in two to three months. However, the first starship prototype didn't last long. During the first liquid nitrogen pressure test, the Mk1 exploded. The test is designed to simulate and execute the stresses of a real launch process.

2021: SN15 prototype finally succeeds

Next, SpaceX launched several Starship prototypes one after another, all of which were more successful than the Mk1 and were able to fly several miles above the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas. But the first prototype to actually fly high enough was the SN8. It flew to an altitude of 7.8 miles (about 13 kilometers), then shut down its engines and pointed its belly toward the ground, proving it could fly. But even so, SN8 hit the landing platform and exploded.

SN8

In May 2021, after blowing up three other prototypes, SN15 finally landed successfully. Musk's long-term plan is to make Starship a reusable rocket, and SN15 demonstrated for the first time that the spacecraft can land on the landing pad unscathed.

With the success of the SN15 prototype, SpaceX is preparing to move forward with its next step: combining Starship with a super-heavy booster for launch. However, its first flight had to wait another two years.

2023: First flight fails

In April 2023, the Starship will conduct its first test flight combined with the super-heavy rocket, with the goal of entering orbit. However, its first flight test did not end as expected.

Starship explodes on first flight

Although the rocket took off successfully, the booster ultimately failed to separate from the spacecraft, causing the rocket to lose control and eventually detonate in mid-air. It was later discovered that in addition to the separation failure, SpaceX had miscalculated the resistance of its concrete launch pad to the dozens of Raptor engines in the booster. There are reports that the rocket blasted a large crater on the launch pad, sending sand, concrete and debris far away, some of which is said to have landed in a town five miles away.

November: Second test flight

Musk is undeterred and will strive to flight test the next iteration of the rocket as soon as possible. Musk previously told reporters that SpaceX has made at least 1,000 modifications to the Starship design since the last flight, the most notable of which was the introduction of a row of vents between the spacecraft and the booster.

Starship flies again on Saturday

SpaceX engineers also devised a risky maneuver designed to help prevent the first flight test explosion from going wrong. That is, the Starship spacecraft will fire its own engines while the Super Heavy rocket booster is still propelling it forward.

On November 18, Starship will usher in its most ambitious test flight to date.