Skip to main content

Elon Musk’s Starship update included movie of Mars mission

“Let’s make this real,” Elon Musk said to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters on Thursday night after watching a dramatic animation depicting a future Starship mission to a city on Mars.

The SpaceX boss was giving the first public update in two years on the progress of the company’s next-generation space transportation system that’s already part of NASA’s plans for a crewed lunar landing, and yes, could one day carry humans to Mars, too.

The presentation (below) took place at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas, with the Starship rocket — comprising the extremely powerful Super Heavy first stage and the Starship second stage — forming a dramatic backdrop for the event.

Starship Update

Musk admitted that “there’ll probably be a few bumps in the road” for the project, but said that with the right preparation and plenty of test flights, SpaceX can create something that’s “extremely reliable for human spaceflight.” And having already achieved success with its Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft system, which now carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station, there’s every possibility SpaceX can go all the way with Starship, too.

Musk said he hopes to send Starship on its first orbital test flight next month, though hitting that target date depends on the outcome of an environmental assessment being conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). If the FAA fails to give permission to launch from Boca Chica, Musk said the test flight would likely be delayed for several months as the hardware would have to be moved to a launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, around a 1,000 miles to the east. Either way, Musk said he was “highly confident” of sending Starship on its first orbital flight this year.

Thursday’s event also included a dramatic animation imagining what a future Starship launch to Mars could look like. You can watch it below:

Starship Animation

Starship will be the most powerful rocket ever launched when the 120-meter-tall (394 feet) vehicle finally gets off the ground. Its thrust capability of 72 meganewtons will be just over twice that of the Saturn V vehicle that powered astronauts toward the moon five decades ago.

As the video shows, both stages are designed to land and be used again, a feat SpaceX has already achieved with the first stage of its smaller Falcon 9 rocket. Such a system dramatically reduces the cost of space travel that could pave the way for more ambitious missions.

SpaceX’s immediate goal is to use Starship for crewed moon and Mars landings. A crewed fly-around of the moon could also take place in the next few years. NASA has already asked SpaceX to create a lunar lander version of Starship, called Starship HLS, for its upcoming Artemis III mission that will put the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the moon, possibly in 2025.

Musk believes that if he can make a success of Starship, it could be a major step toward his grand ambition of making life interplanetary, something earthlings have no choice but to achieve if human civilization is to continue. Musk’s plan may sound crazy, and he won’t be around long enough to see it happen in any meaningful way, but he’s laying the groundwork and inspiring people to work toward, as he likes to say, “making science-fiction not fiction forever.”

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
SpaceX given green light to send mighty Starship rocket skyward
A Super Heavy booster on the launchpad at SpaceX's site in Texas.

A Super Heavy booster on the launchpad at SpaceX's site in Texas. SpaceX / SpaceX

SpaceX has been given the green light to send its Super Heavy rocket and Starship spacecraft skyward in what will be only the second test launch of the world's most powerful spaceflight system.

Read more
How to watch SpaceX launch world’s most powerful rocket on Saturday
The Starship, comprising the first-stage Super Heavy and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft, on the launchpad at SpaceX's facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

 

UPDATE: SpaceX has called off Friday's launch of the Starship and is now targeting Saturday. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a social media post that engineers need to replace a grid fin actuator on the first-stage Super Heavy booster, a part which helps to steer the vehicle back to Earth. This article has been updated with the new launch schedule.

Read more
SpaceX says it could fly Starship on Friday, but it depends on one thing
The Starship, comprising the first-stage Super Heavy and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft, on the launchpad at SpaceX's facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX has said it could be in a position to perform the second launch of its next-generation Starship rocket this Friday, though it added that it can only happen once it’s received the nod from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“Starship preparing to launch as early as November 17, pending final regulatory approval," SpaceX said in a recent post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Read more