The ITS launch vehicle was a 2016–2017 design for a privately funded very large 12-meter (39 ft)-diameter orbital launch vehicle planned to be developed by SpaceX. Design work was discontinued in 2017 when development was shifted to a smaller 9-meter version with approximately one-third the payload capability, announced under the project name BFR, and subsequently renamed "Starship/Super Heavy" in 2018, and then sometimes just "Starship" by SpaceX in September 2019, but then "Starship and Super Heavy" once again in October 2019. The initial design objective of the ITS launch vehicle was to launch a variety of SpaceX Mars transportation infrastructure missions to Mars and other destinations in the beyond-Earth-orbit portion of the Solar System. The first launch was not expected before the 2020s. The ITS launch vehicle was to be operated as a somewhat unusual two-stage rocket. Its first stage was to have been powered by 42 Raptor rocket engines—designed and manufactured by SpaceX—operating on densified (chilled near triple point) methane/oxygen, propellants that have not been widely used as rocket propellants in the past. Like the Falcon 9 orbital launch vehicle that preceded it, the ITS launch vehicle's first stage design was intended to be reusable, following a return to the launch site and vertical landing following each launch. When announced, it was also designed to have a new feature for SpaceX launch vehicles: full reusability of even the second-stage and orbital spacecraft as well. The large payload capacity of the launch vehicle placed it into the super-heavy lift class, with the ability to place 300 tonnes (660,000 lb) into low Earth orbit in reusable configuration and 550 tonnes (1,210,000 lb) in expendable mode. The second stage of the Earth launch vehicle was planned to have two versions, the Interplanetary Spaceship for passengers and cargo and the ITS tanker to deliver propellants to Earth orbit. Both were to be powered by six vacuum-optimized Raptor rocket engines with three additional sea-level-nozzle Raptor engines for maneuvering. Thus, the element of the launch vehicle that was to provide second-stage acceleration to orbital velocity on all launches from Earth would also be used as an on-orbit spacecraft. The Interplanetary Spaceship was planned as a very long-duration carrier of both passengers and space cargo to interplanetary destinations, and was to have served as both a descent and ascent vehicle at Mars. The high-level specifications for the vehicle were publicly announced in September 2016, but by July 2017, SpaceX had stated they would not build the 12 m (39 ft)-diameter vehicles as previously planned, but would instead build a "still large" but much smaller launch vehicle first. Subsequently, that was revealed to be the BFR in September 2017, a vehicle intended to cost-effectively replace and supersede all existing SpaceX launch vehicles and passenger/cargo spacecraft.
History The launch vehicle was initially mentioned in public discussions by Elon Musk in 2012 as part of SpaceX's description of its overall Mars system architecture, then known as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT). MCT was SpaceX's name for its privately funded development project to design and build a spaceflight system of reusable rocket engines, launch vehicles and space capsules to eventually transport humans to Mars and return them to Earth. As early as 2007 however, Musk had stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars. Bits of additional information about the mission architecture were released in 2011–2015, including a 2014 statement that initial colonists would arrive at Mars no earlier than the middle of the 2020s, and SpaceX began development of the large Raptor rocket engine for the Mars Colonial Transporter before 2014. Musk stated in a 2011 interview that he hoped to send humans to Mars' surface within 10–20 years, and in late 2012 that he envisioned the first colonists arriving no earlier than the middle of the 2020s. In October 2012, Musk first publicly articulated a high-level plan to build a second reusable rocket system with capabilities substantially beyond the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launch vehicles on which SpaceX had by then spent several billion US dollars. This new vehicle was to be "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster ... much bigger [than Falcon 9]." But Musk indicated that SpaceX would not be speaking publicly about it until 2013. In June 2013, Musk stated that he intended to hold off any potential IPO of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly." In February 2014, the principal payload for the MCT launch vehicle was announced to be a large interplanetary spacecraft named Mars Colonial Transporter, capable of carrying up to 100 tonnes (220,000 lb) of passengers and cargo. Musk stated that Mars Colonial Transporter will be "100 times the size of an SUV". According to SpaceX engine development head Tom Mueller, concept designs at the time indicated SpaceX could use nine Raptor engines on a single rocket, similar to the use of nine Merlin engines on each Falcon 9 booster core, in order "to put over 100 tons of cargo on Mars." At that time, it appeared that the large rocket core that would be used for the booster to be used with MCT would be at least 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter—nearly three times the diameter and over seven times the cross-sectional area of the Falcon 9 booster cores—and was expected to have up to three rocket cores with a total of at least 27 engines. By August 2014, media sources speculated that the initial flight test of the Raptor-driven super-heavy launch vehicle could occur as early as 2020, in order to fully test the engines under orbital spaceflight conditions; however, any colonization effort was then reported to continue to be "deep into the future".
Previously, the launch vehicle was known informally as the BFR ("Big Falcon Rocket or Big Fucking Rocket"), a name coined by Musk personally in reference to the BFG 9000 from the 1993 video game Doom. The spacecraft had a similar moniker: informally dubbed the BFS (for Big Fucking Spaceship), also coined by Musk.
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