Powerful Ilona Mask rocket will take a new space station to one flight (photo)
The latter will finish its work either in 2030 or in 2031, Space writes. In focus. Technology has appeared its Telegram channel. Subscribe not to miss the latest and most intrusive news from the world of science! NASA in 2021 allocated $ 160 million to the American company Voyager Space to create a new Starlab space station. In 2023, Airbus joined the development of the orbital anvapost.
On January 31, it became known that two developers of the new orbital station selected the Starship Megarakete from SpaceX as a vehicle for shipping to StarLab orbit. The amount of the contract is not disclosed, but it is known that the StarLab station will be sent by 2030 to orbit in a fully assembled form for just one launch. It is also unknown what kind of cosport the launch will take place.
The Starship mega-hat of 122 meters high is considered to be the largest and most powerful launch vehicle of all available. This rocket is reusable and is also intended to deliver people and cargoes a month and Mars in the future. According to the technical data, Starship can lift 150 tons of loads into space. But there is one, with a big problem. Still, the Starship rocket has not been successfully tested.
The first two test launches of the rocket, in April and November last year, ended with explosions, although the rocket reached space during the second flight, as focus has already written. Therefore, SpaceX still needs to demonstrate a successful flight into space that will make a Starship rocket. It was assumed that the third test flight would take place in February this year, but there is no certainty that it would happen.
Despite the fact that Starship is still in the process of revision, Ilon Maska has already concluded several contracts that provide for the use of a rocket as a vehicle, as soon as it is ready for use. For example, there are already space tourists who have purchased seats on the Starship rocket in order to fly around the moon and back.
SpaceX also concluded a contract with NASA, which stipulates that the modified version of Starship will act as a landing module for astronauts that have flew a month. Such a planting module is still in development and this influenced the fact that NASA had to postpone the date of return of American astronauts to the month from 2025 to 2026, as focus has already written. We remind that astronauts who are on the ISS have made an amazing shot of Earth from space.