I think you have heard that the next new invention of SpaceX. It is a big falcon. It is rapidly developing nowadays. It will be a superb rocket in space history within the next few years. Not only big falcon but also SpaceX engineers have designed the next rocket. It is a big falcon, 2.0. I am sure those rockets will be the turning point in space travel history.
SpaceX is the company that designing space rockets. Sometimes you have heard about SpaceX. But my responsibility is to tell you about SpaceX.
What does it mean by SpaceX?
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation is known as SpaceX in a short form. The primary motivation of this company is colonization on Mars. The founder of SpaceX is Elon Musk. I gave some information here briefly. If you want to know more information, refer to my above article. From that, I gave the necessary information.
Now we move to our main topic as you all know that the rocket is named BFR. It is the big falcon rocket. This is a fully reusable rocket. The development of the BFR started in2012, that he wants to start a new project. It is a new reusable rocket. But he told even it would be a secret until 2013.
Further, he stated that SpaceX doesn’t reveal anything about the new project. SpaceX engineers designed this as reusable to minimize their production costs. This rocket has two main sectors. The two parts are as a super-heavy booster and the Starship. Finally, along with those two parts, the whole vehicle is known to be Starship. The SpaceX engineers expect to do experiments for those two parts separately. They are making differences in these rockets after experiencing the problems that had to face after launching the prototypes, as well as that SpaceX is producing this rocket for reentering the earth’s atmosphere after finishing the space journey.
When constructing BFR, the super-heavy booster can be easily made than the Starship because the super-heavy booster is very familiar with SpaceX engineers. This super-heavy booster is the large version of the Falcon 9 booster. Other than that, SpaceX engineers had decided that they have to use methane for the Starship except for rocket propellant.
SpaceX engineers creating this rocket not only for entertainment or their experiments but also for extraordinary tasks. Their main target is the colonization of Mars. There are some other aims too. Few of them are carrying astronauts to the International Space Station, multi-planetary transportation, and expedition to the universe and the moon.
Can you imagine how much is estimated for this project? It is about US$ 2-3 billion. This amount will be higher than the estimated amount if SpaceX engineers won’t be using reusable materials. They expect to build this rocket about 118 meters in height, 9 meters in diameter, and about 5,000,000 kg in mass.
Now I should tell you the dimensions of Starship and super-heavy booster separately. First of all, I am taking a super-heavy booster. It is 9 meters in diameter, 68 meters long. There are about 35 raptor engines. As I above told, engineers to expect to use CH4 (methane) as fuel.
And the other one is the Starship. We can’t forget to tell you that part, so it is an essential part. It is also 9 meters in diameter, 50 meters long. It has a total of six engines, including 3 raptors and 3 raptor vacuums. Here also, CH4 (methane) is used as a fuel.
The development of the raptor engine begins in 2012. Engine testing begins in 2016 and flight testing in July 2019. In the August 2014 media sources announced another flight testing is scheduled in 2020. In 2015 Musk said that he is going to reveal the secret of the project.
In September 2017, SpaceX revealed the new vehicle. It is at the International Astronautical Congress.
As I mentioned above, to invent perfect invention, they tested their progress using several prototypes. Now it is time to see what are those.
Before moving to this topic, it is useful if you know about different types of rocket engines. There are two types of pressure fed cycle engines and open flow rocket engines. Pressure fed cycle engines can pull fuels out from using their pressure. In the second type, the turbopump is used to pull fuels out. An open flow rocket engine is used In Merlin 1D engine. Falcon 9 is made out of that. However, the engine must be capable of the restart after shutting down it. Mainly they used prototypes to analyze problems they had to face when restarting the shuttle.
Starhopper
It is the first testing vehicle. This was held at the SpaceX South Texas launch site near Boca Chica, Texas. This is a test at a low altitude under 5km. Starhopper is used to test how fuel is working with this system, as well as that star hopper represents the upper part of the big falcon rocket. Only one raptor engine is used for this. After landing the star hopper, you had seen it was parked slanted.
Why was that?
Out of 3 legs, 2 of them were damaged because of that is parked slanted so that this prototype couldn’t be landed smoothly. Other than that, the upper part of this prototype was damaged by high winds. SpaceX engineers moved this spacecraft to another place and landed in a landing pad. This was parked successfully, but the only problem is the above I mentioned. I think SpaceX engineers had found the solution, and they will correct it from their next prototype.
Starship
This is also known as Starship Mk1 design. This is planned for high altitude and high velocity, And there is another prototype called Mk2. SpaceX engineers expect to start another prototype. It will be Mk3. There are some differences from star hopper. The starship prototype is thicker than the star hopper. As well as that Starship is taller than the star hopper.
Now I like to give you further information about this space shuttle. There are three parts in this spacecraft other than the two main stages. In the first part, the luggage can be transported. Passengers can travel to space from the second part. Fuel can be stored in a third party. In the booster, there are six landing legs. SpaceX engineers made those legs to suit rouge lands like in the moon and mars. I expect within 2020-2024 there would be a revolution in the spacecraft history. After these years, our brothers and sisters would be the humans who are living on Mars. I think SpaceX will become successful with modern technology.
