Starship (or colloquially the Ship) is a spacecraft and second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Stacked atop its booster, Super Heavy, the pair compose SpaceX's super heavy-lift space vehicle, also called Starship. The spacecraft is designed to transport both passengers and cargo to a variety of destinations, including Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. It is designed to be reusable and capable of landing propulsively by firing its engines to perform a controlled descent into the arms of a tower on Earth or with landing legs on other planetary bodies. It is intended to enable long-duration interplanetary flights with up to 100 passengers. It is also claimed by SpaceX to be capable of enabling travel to anywhere on Earth in under an hour. Furthermore, it has been proposed to be used to refuel other Starship spacecraft, enabling them to reach higher orbits and other space destinations. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, estimated in a tweet that eight launches would be needed to completely refuel a Starship in low Earth orbit. However, some estimates include as many as twenty refueling flights. Development began in 2012, when Musk described a plan to build a reusable launch vehicle with substantially greater capabilities than the Falcon 9 and the planned Falcon Heavy. The rocket evolved through many design and name changes. On July 25, 2019, the Starhopper prototype performed the first successful flight at SpaceX Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas. In May 2021, the SN15 prototype became the first full-size test spacecraft to take off and land successfully. On April 20, 2023, Starship 24 performed the first full flight test on top of a Super Heavy booster, followed by a second test on November 18, 2023, when Starship 25 successfully completed hot staging and passed the Kármán line, becoming the first Starship to reach space as well as the heaviest object to ever reach space, before exploding at 148 km. As of March 2025, SpaceX has conducted six more flight tests of Starship, successfully achieving orbital velocities and gradually testing the atmospheric reentry and vertical landing capabilities of the vehicle by performing controlled splashdowns into the Indian Ocean. In April 2024, Elon Musk announced two new versions of Starship, Block 2 and Block 3. Both versions are expected to be taller, and have increased thrust.
Design The Block 2 version of Starship is 52.1 m (171 ft) tall, 9 m (30 ft) wide, and is composed of four general sections: the engine bay, the oxygen tank, the fuel tank, and the payload bay. The retired Block 1 was constructed in a similar manner, though it was only 50.3 m (165 ft) tall. Elon Musk stated in 2021 that the vehicle has a dry mass of roughly 100 t (220,000 lb). The windward side is protected by a heat shield, which is composed of eighteen thousand hexagonal black tiles that can withstand temperatures of 1,400 °C (2,600 °F). It is designed to protect the vehicle during atmospheric entry and to be used multiple times with minimal maintenance between flights. The silica-based tiles are attached to Starship with pins, and had small gaps in between to allow for heat expansion. After flight test 4, SpaceX added a secondary ablative layer under the primary heat shield, though this was only added to the flaps of the flight test 6 vehicle. This ablative layer is likely composed of pyron, which is similar in composition to carbon composites. The total mass of the heat shield and ablative layer of a Block 1 ship is 10.5 t (23,000 lb). After flight test 10, SpaceX added a felt, called "crunch wrap," between the gaps in between the tiles to prevent heat seeping in.
Tanks The propellant tanks on Starship are separated by a common bulkhead, similar to the ones used on the S-II and S-IVB stages on the Saturn V rocket. While Block 2 vehicles use an elliptical dome, the common and forward domes of the Block 1 design were more conical. Block 1 vehicles only had 24 stringers within the oxygen tank, while Block 2 vehicles had these added to the methane tanks. The vehicle's tanks hold 1,500 t (3,300,000 lb) of propellant, consisting of 1,170 t (2,580,000 lb) of liquid oxygen and 330 t (730,000 lb) of liquid methane. Fuel is fed to the engines via four downcomers, with three smaller downcomers feeding the Vacuum Raptors/RVacs and the central downcomer feeding the inner three engines. The central downcomer connects to a large sump, instead of directly to the methane tank itself. The original design only featured a single downcomer. The liquid oxygen (LOX) downcomer extends into the LOX tank, with a small expanded portion of unknown purpose. Two additional downcomers route methane and oxygen from the header tanks. A camera is located on the walls of the tank, pointed towards the payload bay. The oxygen tank terminates with the thrust structure of the vehicle. The RVacs are mounted directly to the aft dome, which has reinforcements mounted inside of the tank. The three sea level engines are mounted on the thrust puck, which forms the bottom of the aft dome. A conical steel structure is mounted inside the bottom of the dome, reinforcing the thrust puck enough to enable its support of the inner three engines. The propellant lines on the vehicles are all vacuum jacketed, reducing boiloff while in orbit.
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