SpaceX Starship (spacecraft)

Starship 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 crew 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 a crew of up to 100 people. 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.