Starship assembled successfully, 120 meters high, Elon Musk: dream come true

On Friday, August 7, SpaceX, the U.S. space exploration technology company, integrated the prototype Starship S20 with the prototype Super Heavy Rocket Booster B4 for the first time. When asked how he felt about witnessing this scene, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that the dream has finally come true.

SpaceX is developing an interstellar spacecraft to send humans and cargo to the moon and even Mars. The prototype Starship is about 160 feet tall, comparable to a 16-story building, and is made of stainless steel. spaceX plans to launch the Starship using a Super Heavy Rocket Booster, a launch vehicle about 230 feet tall. The overall height of the integrated Starship and Super Heavy Rocket Booster is more than 120 meters.

Over the past year, SpaceX has conducted several short test flights of its Starship prototype, but getting to orbit represents the next phase of the company's testing. In May, SpaceX unveiled plans for its first orbital flight, to be launched from the company's facility in Texas and then splashed down off the coast of Hawaii. spaceX is always preparing for orbital flight tests of interstellar spacecraft and super-heavy rocket boosters, although its launch will be preceded by an environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Musk outlined four "important projects" that SpaceX plans to complete in the next two weeks in preparation for the Starship's orbital launch. He said SpaceX needs to add the "final insulation tiles" to the spacecraft, add "thermal protection" to the Raptor rocket engine on Booster B4, complete work on the "ground propellant storage tank "and adding a quick-disconnect robot arm to the top of the recently built launch tower, which connects power and fuel lines to the rocket before launch.

While SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are partially reusable, Musk's goal is to make the Starship fully reusable, making it more akin to a commercial aircraft with a short turnaround time between flights, so the only major cost is fuel.

An important aspect of making the Starship fully reusable is to increase its durability to survive an intense re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. To address this issue, SpaceX used tiny hexagonal heat shields, and Starship S20 is now covered with thousands of them. Musk noted that the Starship S20 is "98 percent" complete, and that "the remaining tiles are the ones that need to be machined into unique shapes.

NASA has been closely monitoring the progress of the Starship project, especially earlier this year, NASA awarded SpaceX a controversial, $2.9 billion contract to use SpaceX's spacecraft to send astronauts to the surface of the moon.

Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's official in charge of science missions, said he would continue to follow the progress of the interstellar spacecraft. He tweeted, "I'm always following this project and I'm excited for SpaceX to achieve this milestone and can't wait to see it fly!"

Musk replied to Zurbuchen in another tweet, once again touting the power of the Starship. He wrote, "Thanks to its massive size and ability to send scientific instruments into space, Starship will support entirely new scientific missions."