SpaceX Super Heavy Booster
Specifications
- Function: Super Heavy Booster
- First stage for SpaceX Starship
- Height: 70 m (230 ft)
- Diameter: 9 m (30 ft)
- Propellant mass: 3,400 t (7,500,000 lb)
- Powered by: 33x Raptor engine
- Maximum thrust: 72 MN (16,000,000 lbf)
- Propellant: Liquid oxygen, Liquid methane
- Second stage is: SpaceX Starship HLS
- Remarks: Can land on Earth again
- Challenges:
A super heavy-lift launch vehicle can lift to low Earth orbit more than 50 metric tons (110,000 lb) by United States (NASA) classification or 100 metric tons (220,000 lb) by Russian classification. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, succeeding the heavy-lift launch vehicle classification. Crewed lunar and interplanetary missions are often developed around these launch vehicles’ payload capacity.
Many early super heavy-lift launch vehicle concepts were made in the 1960s, such as the Sea Dragon. During the Space Race, the Saturn V and N1 were built by the United States and Soviet Union. After the Saturn V’s successful Apollo program and the N1’s failures, the Soviets’ Energia launched twice in the 1980s, once with the Buran spaceplane. The next two decades saw multiple concepts were drawn out once again, most notably Shuttle-derived vehicles and Rus-M, but none would be built. In the 2010s, super heavy-lift launch vehicles received interest once again, leading to the launch of the Falcon Heavy and the development of the Space Launch System, Starship, Long March, and Yenisei rockets.
Footnote
- Sources: Aerospace dashboard, SpaceX, funkystuff.org
- Outgoing: NASA
- Keywords: