What makes SpaceX's Starship so special?

SN8 on launch pad in Boca Chica.
Image credit: SpaceX

Introduction

SpaceX is developing its Starship, which is a launch vehicle to send cargo into orbit or planets and transport humans from Earth to Earth or from Earth to Mars or from Earth to Moon or literally anywhere! 

It has 2 stages, and both of them are reusable, which is something no one has done before. That will make it a fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle. The booster is called Super Heavy. As the name suggests, the booster is very large and huge, and of course, very powerful.

The booster is around 72m tall, which is already taller than the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy only stands at around 70m high. The Starship (both the upper stage and the whole vehicle has the same name, and in this Starship I am mentioning now is the upper stage) has a height of 50m, equivalent to a 16-story-tall building. 

Image credit: Everyday Astronaut

Starship (upper stage) has fins, to control its descend and perform belly flop before landing. It uses methane and liquid oxygen. Why methane? Well, because methane is cheap, denser, no insulation required and this makes the rocket less complex and therefore cheaper. But most importantly is that methane can be found and produced on Mars! 

Raptor

Starship's engine is also something rather special. Its engine, Raptor is a full-flow staged combustion cycle engine. It's complex and very very efficient, making it one of the best rocket engine ever made! 

There will be 6 Raptors in the upper stage, 3 of them are optimized for sea-level while the other 3 are vacuum-optimized. 

According to recent updates, there will be 32 Raptors in the Super Heavy booster! That's a lot! 

3 Raptors under a Starship prototype. 
Image credit: SpaceX

Landing

About 2 minutes after liftoff, the main engine cuts off (MECO) and Super Heavy separates from Starship (upper stage). While Starship (upper stage) fires up its vacuum-optimized engine and continues its journey, the Super Heavy performs a boost-back burn to return to the landing site. 

The Super Heavy, similar to Falcon 9 booster, has grid fins to control the booster during its descend. Then, the Super Heavy booster lights up some of its engine before landing. Elon Musk is planning to catch the booster instead of landing it. Very cool, huh?

The Starship (upper stage) will then reach orbit and deploy its cargo or dock with space station or something, depending on its mission. If Starship is to go further, it will refuel by docking with another Starship in orbit. 

After its mission is completed, it will then reenter Earth's atmosphere and fall like a skydiver. To survive the reentry, heat tiles will be mounted on one of the side of the vehicle. 

Then the Starship will perform a belly flop and reorient itself to a vertical position before firing its sea-level optimized engine to land. 

A Starship prototype falling like a skydiver.
Image credit: SpaceX

Variants

The Starship has different variants. All of their purpose are different for different missions. There are mainly 5 variants, Crewed Starship, Cargo Starship, Tanker (to refuel other Starships), and Lunar Starship. 

Here is an illustration of them: 

All variants of Starship. 
Image credit: Everyday Astronaut

Conclusion

So after all of this, why is it so special?

1. It's fully reusable, both upper stage and its booster is designed to land and reuse.
2. It uses methane as the fuel of the rocket. 
3. Starship (upper stage) has fins to control its descend, reentry and landing.
4. The booster has a lot of engines to lift the heavy rocket. 
5. The vehicle is capable of sending cargo/humans to other planets!
6. Starship falls like a skydiver during its descend.
7. Has different variants for different purposes. 

Starship is definitely a very very cool spaceship. The future is very near as SpaceX tests and develop the launch vehicle. 

SN15 launched and landed successfully on May 6, a huge milestone for SpaceX. 

SN16 will launch in a few months, it will be an orbital flight, a full test of both the Starship (upper stage) and the Super Heavy! Can't wait for it!

Do you think Starship can dock with the ISS? Comment down below! I think the Starship is so so large that it has to perform the docking very carefully. If everyone in Starship is to enter ISS, the International Space Station will be very full of people!