One step closer to Mars.
Last night was a milestone in making the human race a multiplanetary species.
SpaceX successfully conducted its tenth Starship test launch, giving us a glimpse of what the near future holds.
It’s quite hard to grasp the significance of what the team at SpaceX is doing right now. The scale of the Starship and its booster is just extraordinary.
For perspective, the short video below shows a human performing final checks before yesterday’s launch.
Source: SpaceX
It’s the largest object of any kind to fly – with twice the mass of the massive Saturn V rocket and three times the thrust…
And it’s going to get bigger.
It was a stunning launch on a beautiful day. Absolutely picture perfect.
Source: SpaceX
The goal of the tenth launch wasn’t anything flashy – like catching a booster and the Starship on the launch pad using the Mechazilla robotic arms. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an important launch.
It’s easy to forget that SpaceX isn’t designing its Starship for just a single launch to orbit. It is designing the Starship in a way that enables SpaceX to mass produce them – ultimately more than 1,000 Starships a year. And all of them, and the Super Heavy booster, are designed to be reusable.
Why so many Starships?
Well, SpaceX’s mission is to enable the human race to become a multiplanetary species. Musk estimates that to sustain life on Mars, we’ll need to “ship” about 1 million tons of material and supplies across our solar system to the Red Planet. Each Starship will be able to carry hundreds of tons to Mars, hence the need for thousands of Starships.
Yesterday’s flight test was a step towards that future.
The 10th test flight involved launching the Starship to a suborbital altitude in space… and then returning both the booster and the Starship to Earth in controlled water landings.
Starship 10th Test Flight | Source: SpaceX
(Click to expand)
While the flightpaths appear very straightforward, the purpose of this test flight was to work on some of the finer technicalities of the reusability of the Starship and its Super Heavy booster.
For example, as the Super Heavy booster was returning to Earth, SpaceX intentionally shut down one of its three center engines used for returning the booster to a launch pad.
The purpose was to simulate an engine failure. The booster then ignited a backup engine from the middle ring of Raptor engines to successfully complete the controlled landing.
Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor Engines | Source: SpaceX
The Starship did something similar while it was in space, successfully relighting one of the Raptor engines, which is critical for deorbiting the Starship.
In addition to that, SpaceX was conducting tests on a new heat shield design for the Starship. The black side of the Starship is its “belly” that it flips over to on re-entry. That’s the heat shield.
For perspective, NASA’s long-retired and reusable Space Shuttle would require nine months of repairs to the heat shield on the Space Shuttle’s belly before it could be used again. SpaceX is designing Starship for completely different parameters. That’s why it is testing so much.
The goal is to be able to return the Starship to Earth – to be caught by a Mechazilla on the landing pad. It will then place it on top of an already refueled Super Heavy booster, conduct pre-flight testing, load passengers and/or cargo onto the Starship, and then launch back into space.
Starship isn’t just being designed for the moon or Mars.
It is being designed for the next generation of commercial air transportation.
Starship will fly from New York to Tokyo in less than 40 minutes.
It will completely transform commercial transportation and air cargo, connecting any two cities on Earth in just 30-40 minutes.
It is a radical change – not only to what we’re used to today, but even compared to supersonic travel, which will be available again to us, thanks to the great progress being made by Boom Supersonic.
Many have been critical of Musk and SpaceX, suggesting that the company is burning through cash and blowing up too many Starships. They are all missing the point.
SpaceX is designing for simplicity and performance. The team isn’t just trying to put a Starship in orbit, which is easy for them to do today.
SpaceX is optimizing its technology and its heat shield to do the impossible. Rapid reusability, safe enough for passengers, and sub $100 per kilogram launch costs, which will ignite a booming space economy.
A great visual example of SpaceX’s rapid progress is the design of its Raptor engines over the last few years.
Three generations of Raptor Engines | Source: SpaceX
We can see how the design has been radically simplified in the picture above. The current version is far easier to mass produce, has far better operational efficiency, and is designed in a way that fewer things can go wrong. Talking about elegant engineering.
But this shows us where SpaceX is today…
Here at Brownstone Research, though, we’re always looking around the corner. That’s why The Near Future Report – my flagship newsletter here at Brownstone Research – is called what it is.
The current version of Starship is just version 2.
Starship V3 will add another 15 or so meters in height and several additional Raptor engines to the Starship itself.
The payload will increase to 200 tonnes to low Earth orbit (LEO), compared to a maximum of 150 tonnes for V2.
It will be capable of missions to both the Moon and Mars, as well as launching version 3 of Starlink satellites at 350 kilometers of altitude, which is a lower altitude than the current Starlink satellites, enabling sub-20 millisecond latency. That level of performance will be indiscernible to almost all from land-based fiber optic broadband internet solutions… and it’s delivered from space.
In fact, on yesterday’s test flight, the Starship launched a number of “dummy” version 3 Starlink satellites from its bay while in space.
If we look closely at the short video below, we can see the mechanism inside the Starship that pushes out the Starlink satellite into space, one after the other. It’s like a giant Pez dispenser. When one is launched, the dispenser reloads and pushes the next Starlink satellite out the bay door.
Simulated Starlink Deployment from Starship | Source: SpaceX
Version 3 of Starship will enter “heavy” commercial utilization next year. By the second half of 2026, SpaceX will likely be launching a Starship every week.
SpaceX is also already working on version 4 of Starship, which will have 42 Raptor engines and undergo testing in the second half of 2026, with commercial flights happening in 2027.
Why 42 engines?
There are few coincidences with Musk.
Musk deemed the number appropriate, as 42 was the “answer to the ultimate question of life, the Universe, and everything,” according to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
And whether that’s true or not, one thing is true for sure…
The nine additional Raptor engines will deliver much more thrust to each launch, and even more payload into orbit…
And so in fact, one could argue that those 42 engines will be the key to a self-sustaining civilization on Mars and the preservation of the human race. And that just may be the answer to the question: What will it take to build a self-sustaining civilization on Mars? 42 Raptor engines.
Regardless, all the progress that we’re witnessing right now with Starship puts SpaceX on track to hit the next orbital alignment with Mars at the end of next year – 2026.
SpaceX will have the ability to launch two or three Starships with materials to the red planet in advance of a manned mission in 2028. We can expect Optimus to be on them – paving the way…
And it goes without saying that if NASA wants to send a Starship to the moon before the end of next year, SpaceX could make it happen.
With China and the U.S. engaged in a modern space race to harvest the lunar regolith for Helium-3 – which is critical to both quantum computing and nuclear fusion – there is only one company in the U.S. that will get NASA there in time.
SpaceX.
To the Moon and Mars,
Jeff
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
