The Starship from SpaceX is a fully reusable two-stage Satellite Launch Vehicle Platform engineered to transport crew, cargo and satellites to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Designed with a Starship upper stage and Super Heavy booster, it stands 124 m tall with a 9 m diameter and delivers a payload capacity of 100+ metric tons to orbit in a fully reusable configuration. The fully reusable architecture, combined with rapid turnaround capability and launch tower catch-and-recovery technology, enables cost-effective and frequent access to space for a wide range of missions.
The launch vehicle is powered by 6 Raptor engines in the Starship upper stage (3 sea-level Raptor and 3 Raptor Vacuum engines) and 33 Raptor engines in the Super Heavy first stage, producing 1614 tf (3.5 Mlbf) of thrust in the upper stage and 8240 tf (18.1 Mlbf) in the booster stage. It utilizes sub-cooled liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX) as propellants, with a propellant capacity of 1600 t in the upper stage and 3650 t in the booster, providing the performance required for orbital insertion, deep-space transportation and heavy-payload launch operations.
Built to support next-generation space exploration and commercial launch services, the Starship platform enables orbital payload delivery, satellite deployment, transportation of up to 100 people on long-duration interplanetary missions, lunar exploration, Mars expeditions and high-capacity point-to-point transportation on Earth. Its reusable design and high-performance propulsion system make it an ideal launch vehicle for future scientific, commercial and human spaceflight applications.
