SpaceX shares stunning animation of Starship making journey to Mars
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SpaceX is gearing up for the launch of its massive Mars rocket, Starship.
With Elon Musk having recently stated on Twitter that the launch of Starship is trending towards the "third week of April", SpaceX recently revealed a new animation showcasing the rocket flying to Mars.
SpaceX shares new Starship animation
In its new promotional video, SpaceX shared stunning imagery of Starship, which is set to be the world's most powerful rocket once it takes to the skies.
The video shows Starship launching to orbit and detaching from the Super Heavy first-stage booster. Super Heavy returns to Earth and is caught on the ground by SpaceX's "Mechazilla" launch tower, while the Starship upper stage starts its journey to Mars.
A shot of a Starship spacecraft touching down on a landing pad tilts upwards to show a characteristic "space jellyfish" caused by another Starship above the skies of the Red Planet. As the camera continues to move upwards, we see more of the impressive exhaust clouds emitted by other Starship spacecraft headed toward the surface of Mars.
The entire video can be viewed above via SpaceX's YouTube channel. It's an exciting look ahead at what a Mars settlement might look like in a few decades – though SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been somewhat distracted by his Twitter duties in recent months, the billionaire recently stated that SpaceX aims to build one million Starship spacecraft to send more than one million humans to Mars by 2050.
Starship could fly to orbit next week
Before that can happen, SpaceX will have to launch Starship to orbit for the first time. The private space firm could launch the Starship Orbital Flight Test (OFT) as soon as April 20, with Musk having recently stated Starship is "ready to launch, pending regulatory approval."
Teams are focused on launch readiness ahead of Starship’s first integrated flight test as soon as next week, pending regulatory approval – no launch rehearsal this week https://t.co/SpsRVRsvz1 pic.twitter.com/ovYUQgAjAc
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 11, 2023
If all goes to plan for SpaceX this month, the 394-foot-tall (120 meters) Starship rocket will become the world's most powerful rocket, surpassing NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). While SLS produced about 9.5 million lbs of thrust at liftoff during the Artemis I moon mission, Starship is expected to soar past that record by creating a massive 17 million lbs of thrust at launch. That will be thanks primarily to the 33 Raptor engines that power Super Heavy.
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