Charles Absher

From the Rio Grande to the Red Planet, the development of Starship

On a March afternoon at the southern edge of Texas where the Rio Grande meets the

Gulf of Mexico, a silver rocket can be seen falling through the sky. At first, the rocket may

appear to be in an uncontrolled free fall, but a closer look shows that four flaps on the sides are

guiding its descent to the ground. Several hundred meters above the landing pad the rocket’s

three engines roar to life, gimbal, and flip the rocket straight up. The engines try to slow the

rocket to a more manageable speed in its vertical position, but they are not able to produce

enough thrust. The aft end hits the ground hard, damaging the engines, but the rocket remains

upright. A fire from the hard landing leads to an explosion eight minutes later, and Starship

Serial Number 10 joins its predecessors in a high energy funeral pyre. Despite the explosion,

SN10 just performed the most successful test flight so far (DeRosa).

            Why did this rocket succeed in landing up right when its predecessors failed? What is the

purpose of this rocket, and why is it trying to land itself in a novel way? To answer these

questions, we need to go to the beginning of the company that built this Starship prototype,

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX. SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon

Musk after he tried and failed to buy rockets for a project he envisioned called Mars Oasis,

which was a plan to land a miniature greenhouse on Mars. Musk founded SpaceX with the goal

of reducing orbital launch costs to facilitate the colonization of Mars, and the reduction of launch

costs would come through the reuse of rockets (Berger).

            Every manned orbital class rocket at this point, except for the Space Shuttle, was only

used once. All the hardware ended up in the ocean, burnt up in the atmosphere, in a graveyard
orbit, or in the case of the crew capsule in a museum. However, SpaceX would not manage to

reuse their hardware until a decade after their founding. In fact, their first project was the Falcon

1, a light rocket which flew five times but only reached orbit the last two times. The successes of

the final Falcon 1 flights earned SpaceX a NASA contract to develop the Falcon 9 rocket and

Dragon cargo capsule to resupply the International Space Station, and in 2015 the first stage of a

Falcon 9 landed successful after boosting a payload to orbit. Later NASA and Department of

Defense contracts led to the development of the Falcon Heavy and Crew Dragon capsules

(Berger).

Early Development

            The first proposal for transportation to Mars was the Red Dragon capsule, a modified,

unmanned Dragon 2 that would land on Mars using the SuperDraco engines originally developed

for launch abort. The mission would be a technology pathfinder meant to test methods of landing

on Mars to make the way for the design that would eventually become Starship. When plans to

use this Super Dracos for a propulsive landing were cut in favor of a parachute splashdown for

the normal Dragon 2 capsule, so was the Red Dragon (Crane).

            The Raptor engines that would power Starship first began development in 2009, although

initially they were going to be powered by hydrogen. Starship development began in earnest in

2012, when the concept of the Mars Colonial Transporter was announced, and methane was

chosen as the new fuel for the Raptor engines. The switch in fuel was made because methane

could be synthesized on Mars from underground water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

using the Sabatier reaction, but further details on the ship and its power source were kept scarce.

SpaceX’s focus stayed on the Falcon rockets and Dragon capsules and the next major

announcement would not come until 2016 (Belluscio).

Early concept art of the Mars Colonial Transporter and Red Dragon (Photo Credit: Lazarus Luan, SpaceX)
   

In September of 2016, the Raptor engine was test fired for the first time, and that same

month at the International Astronautical Conference, Musk announced details and the general

architecture of the vehicle under its new name, the Interplanetary Transport System. The

animated models showed a carbon fiber cylindrical ship that was mostly white with a black heat

shield, like a Space Shuttle without wings (Todd). The year 2017 brought a new name to the

rocket, BFR or Big Falcon Rocket, and a small delta wing was added to the rear of the ship. In

2018, the delta wing was replaced with canards on the front end of the ship and two aft fins that

would double as landing legs. A third landing leg would be on the top side to balance the ship,

but it had no aerodynamic purpose (Ralph). Around the same time it was announced that the first

prototype was under construction at a facility in the Port of Los Angeles, but it wouldn’t last for

long (Foust).

            At the end of 2018, SpaceX finally christened their spaceship with the name Starship.

They also announced the most drastic change yet: Starship would be built out of stainless steel

instead of carbon fiber. Stainless steel is heavier than carbon fiber, but is also cheaper, which is

critical since SpaceX plans on building a fleet of Starships to colonize Mars. In fact, stainless

steel is also much more accessible and easier to work with, enabling the iterative design process
that has proved critical for Starship development (McManus). Consequently, the switch to

stainless steel also triggered the shutdown of the development in Los Angeles and a shift to two

sites, one in Coco Beach, Florida, and another in Boca Chica, Texas. These two sites would

engage in a competition to build the first orbital Starship, with their prototypes named Mark 1

and Mark 2 (Foust).

            The first prototype capable of flight was announced at this time, named Starhopper.

Starhopper was essentially a 39 meter tall cylinder with three legs, similar to the proposed ones

for the full scale design. Inside were subscale tanks for oxygen and methane that fed to a single

Raptor engine. Construction began at the Boca Chica site in October of 2018, and the first static

fire was in April of 2019. In July, Starhopper used its single Raptor to fly 20 meters high, and in

August it had its most ambitious flight, going up to 150 meters, and landing about 100 meters

from the launch pad. Starhopper was retired after this flight, and still stands in Boca Chica as a

post for cameras and weather monitoring equipment (Hehmeyer).

The Evolution of the Starship design. (Credit: Kimi Talvitie)

Boca Chica.  Musk gave the presentation with Mark 1, the first full scale prototype, behind him.

Numerous small differences between the last drawing board design and the first prototype were

shown, but the biggest one was the replacement of the three landing legs with two fins to guide

the ship in its descent into the atmosphere. The replacement for the legs has not been decided on,

and SpaceX is using small stubby legs that swing out from the engine skirt as a placeholder on

current prototypes (Hehmeyer).

How it Works

            The general architecture for a Mars mission stabilized after this event and starts off with

Starship stacked on top of its Super Heavy booster. The two together can be referred to as the

Starship System or just Starship, while the first stage booster is named Super Heavy and the

upper stage by itself is named simply Starship. Super Heavy lifts the stack off the pad with 28

Raptor engines, although this number is in flex and the first Super Heavy prototype has just

begun construction. At stage separation Super Heavy will release Starship and fly itself back to

the launch pad using its engines and grid fins, like a Falcon 9. The current plan is to fly Super

Heavy directly to the launch pad and have a tower catch it, and thereafter set it down on the pad,

enabling it to forgo the heavy landing legs (Primal Space).

            Starship will use its three vacuum-optimized Raptor engines to finish the job and boost

itself into a low earth orbit, where it will then wait to refuel. The same booster will fly unmanned

tanker variants of Starship up to the crewed one where they will dock their aft ends in a “butt to

butt” fashion. The tanker will then transfer fuel to the manned ship, in the first example of orbital

refueling. It may take up to six flights to completely top off Starship’s tank. Starship will begin
the six-month journey by lighting its vacuum optimized Raptors again to launch itself on a Mars

trajectory (Dodd).

            Once Starship gets to Mars, it will fly directly into the Martian atmosphere without using

fuel to slow down into an orbit, similar to the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. The Martian

atmosphere will be used to bleed off much of the velocity, and the four fins will be used to

control its descent like a skydiver. When approaching the surface Starship will light its three

surface level Raptor engines to flip itself into a vertical position, and then use the engines to burn

off any more velocity before landing. Equipment utilizing the Sabatier process will be used to

generate methane and oxygen for the return home. Due to Mars' lower gravity and thin

atmosphere, Starship will be able to lift itself off the planet and return to Earth without a booster.

Entry descent and landing on Earth will be like Mars (Dodd).

            Starship itself will have three vacuum optimized Raptor engines on the outer edge of its

aft end, and three sea level ones clustered in the middle. Since there is no oxygen to create the

explosive reactions needed for rocket engines in space, rockets need to carry oxygen with them

alongside the fuel where they are mixed together inside the engine’s combustion chamber, and

the fiery exhaust is released through an engine bell, creating thrust and pushing the rocket. The

vacuum Raptors are fed by a large liquid oxygen tank directly above the engines, and on top of

the oxygen tank sits a liquid methane tank. The sea level engines used for landing are fed by a

small methane tank in between the larger tanks, and a liquid oxygen tank at the top of the nose

cone. The fuel for the sea level engines is kept separate to prevent sloshing of fuel in large

mostly empty tanks on the long transits between Earth and Mars. In between the methane tank

and the oxygen header tank will be the crew area (McManus).
            In addition to the manned Starship and the tanker variant, a cargo version is planned that

will be able to deliver satellites to orbit or deliver shipments to Mars autonomously. A lunar

landing variant is competing for a contract in the Artemis program as well. Although the primary

function of this ship is mass movement of colonists and material to Mars, SpaceX envisions

many more roles for it, and speculates that it could completely take over the launch industry

(Ferguson).

The internal design of a Starship (Credit: What About It Youtube channel with annotation from Inara Prey)

The Paleo Starships

            According to Musk, Mk 1 was supposed to be more than just a prop for the 2019 Starship

presentation. It was envisioned that Mk 1 would fly to a height of twenty kilometers and

demonstrate the belly flop maneuver, and an orbital test flight would follow a few months later.

The realities of testing soon killed this timeline. In November 2019, Mk 1 underwent a cryogenic

loading test, which entailed filling the methane and oxygen tanks with supercooled liquid to

maximum pressure to see how they held up. The tanks failed during this test, and the top

bulkhead was sent flying through the air with a white vapor, probably oxygen and nitrogen

billowed out behind it. Shortly after Musk announced on twitter that SpaceX would move on the

Mk 3 model instead of repairing Mk 1 (Williams).

would also be scrapped and that they would move on the Mk 4 design. But Mk 4 would never get

off the drawing board as SpaceX then decided to scrap the whole idea of an internal space race

completely and focus on development at Boca Chica. By the end of 2019, the Coco Beach

facility was shut down and most of the workforce and material was moved to Texas. A shift in

nomenclature also occurred, with new prototypes being designated by Serial Number, or SN,

rather than Mark. Mk 3 then became known as SN1 (Ralph).

            SN1 would meet a similar fate to Mk 1 at the end of February 2020. The prototype was

put through a cryogenic pressure test in an unfinished state, with no fins or nose cone, when the

lower bulkhead failed, sending the body of the ship flying through the fair with the distinctive

white vapor blowing out behind it. SpaceX identified the failure as an improper weld between

the body of the Starship and the thrust puck, the part that holds the engines in place and delivers

their thrust to the rest of the body. When the weld broke it released the eight and a half bar of

pressure built up inside, breaking the prototype to the point where it couldn’t be repaired (Wall).

            SpaceX decided to focus on the tank section of the ship for SN2, and it was built

specifically to test welding and thrust puck design. This prototype was simply a thrust puck and

tank, with no engines, fins, or nose cone, and was significantly shorter than the other prototypes.

In March of 2020, SN2 passed its pressure test with a hydraulic press pushing on the bottom,

designed to simulate firing Raptor engines. After this achievement, it was announced that SN3

would be built for short hops and SN4 would be used for longer duration flights (Wall).

            Subsequently, SN3 was built quickly and ready for testing by the beginning of April.

Despite the quick build time it looked remarkably improved over previous prototypes and had

improved welding. When Mk1 was first rolled out Boca Chica was basically an open field in a
salt marsh with some tents and a lot of scrap metal lying around, but by now there were

permanent buildings, leading to improved quality. Furthermore, SN3 was put on the test stand,

and on April 3, it underwent an ambient temperature pressure test, where the tanks are

pressurized only at room temperature, not at cryogenic temperatures, and in fact, SN3 passed this

test and the cryogenic temperature pressure testing began. First the lower tank was pressurized

and the distinctive ice formed on the outside of a Starship when at super cool temperatures was

seen. The initial test of the lower tank was stopped early due to leaking valves, but the problem

was fixed and the tank passed a second test (Burghardt).

            After the successful test the lower tank was emptied and the upper one began to be

pressurized. The upper tank was filled all the way up and completely enclosed in ice when

buckling could be seen underneath the upper tank. A few minutes later it collapsed and fell off

the top of the lower section. This failure was different from the other two in that instead of an

explosion from the tanks not being able to hold the intense internal pressure, it was caused by a

structural failure. A valve had been accidently commanded to open, releasing all the leftover

pressure in the lower tank. When the tanks are pressurized the internal force gives them

increased strength, and the unpressurized lower section that had been emptied couldn’t hold the

weight of the pressurized upper tank. The resulting wreckage looked like a can that had been

ripped in half (Burghardt).

            Although it wouldn’t reach the goals set for it by Elon Musk, SN4 would see significant

improvement over its predecessors. About three weeks after the destruction of SN3, SN4 was on

the test stand and passed the full cryogenic pressure test, making it the first full sized Starship to

do so. SN3 then became the first full sized Starship to pass a static fire, where the engines are

fired for a few seconds to check their systems and see how the tanks react under pressure, on
May 5, and just two days later, a second static first was performed using fuel from the header

tanks. On May 19, another static fire was conducted that caused issues. Engine vibrations caused

one of the methane carrying pipes to break loose, which ignited insulation, causing significant

damage to the underside of the rocket. Consequently, the fire destroyed control wiring making it

impossible for SpaceX to depressurize the tanks for the next two days (Brown).

            On May 29, SN4 underwent another static fire of the Raptor engines, but a problem with

the quick disconnect proved fatal. The quick disconnect is the umbilical portal that connects the

rocket to the ground support equipment and allows for the fueling of the rocket and wired

communications and telemetry. The quick disconnect must be able to break off from the rocket

quickly to allow it to launch while also not damaging the ports to allow for quick reuse. During

the static fire the quick disconnect broke free from the Starship to simulate launch conditions but

was not able to fully reconnect after the engines shut down. This failure led to methane flowing

out of the rocket as the cryogenic propellant began to boil off, which quickly led to a massive

explosion. Previous Starships popped, as their internal structure failed under pressure, but this

was the first prototype to truly explode, and therefore, SN4 was left beyond repair, yet charred

remains scattered across the test area, and the test stand severely damaged (Brown).

            SN4 was supposed to fly to altitudes of ten kilometers or higher, but this setback did not

slow SpaceX down. Two days later the first manned Crew Dragon capsule took flight from

Kennedy Space Center to dock with the International Space Station, marking the first time a

private company put a human in orbit. After this success, Elon Musk announced that excluding

the safety of the current and future crews, Starship was the company’s top priority. The next

prototypes to the test stand would be SN5 and SN6. Musk had stated he hoped these two

prototypes would achieve orbit, but that was before the destruction of SN3 and SN4 (Brown).
SN5 on its test flight. (Credit: Elon Musk)
          

  SN5 was complete and at the repaired test stand by the end of July where it successfully

completed a static fire. On August 4, SN5 took flight and completed a 150-meter hop, flying a

similar profile to Starhopper and becoming the first full size prototype to fly. On September 3,

SN6 took flight in a similar test. Both Starships flew with only a single raptor engine and were

completely stripped down, with no flaps or nosecone. These flights were simple, and the only

obvious advancement over Starhopper was proving a full-sized prototype could fly, but after the

failures of the previous prototypes this was a success. These hops would pave the way for the

high-altitude flights to come (Malik).

Flying High

            The next flight was originally projected to be 20 kilometers, but FAA regulation scaled it

back to 12.5. Regardless of any suppression, by October SN8 was on the test stand and

undergoing testing, and multiple static fire tests took place throughout November, and SN8 was

the first Starship since Mark 1 to include a nose cone and body flaps. It also included SpaceX’s
new in house developed alloy, 304L stainless steel, which was originally tested out on a second

test tank named SN7. The first launch attempt took place on December 8, but a Raptor auto abort

occurred immediately after the engines were ignited. The clock was frozen with a second left on

the countdown (Manley).

            SN8 successfully launched the next afternoon and climbed high into the atmosphere on a

pillar of fire from its three Raptor engines. As the propellant burned through the engines, the

Starship became lighter, leading SpaceX to switch off two of the Raptors before apogee. Once

SN8 began to reach the peak of its flight, it seemed to hover for a minute on the power of a

single Raptor engine with its reaction control thrusters balancing it. The thrusters then pushed the

Starship into a horizontal position and the flaps moved inward to control flight on the journey

downwards, and thereafter, SN8 fell for about two and half minutes before two of the engines

lighted to perform its terminal maneuver (Manley).

SN8 lighting it’s engines for the landing attempt. (Credit: SpaceX)

            When the engines relit, they took their fuel from the header tanks instead of the main

tanks, and as Starship approached the surface the methane header tank pressure was inadequately
low, leading to an overabundance of oxygen in the combustion chamber of the Raptors, making

the internal temperature too high. The Raptors shot out a green tinted exhaust, a sign of the

engine eating itself as the high temperatures destroy the copper internals, and dangerously low

thrust. Despite this the Raptors were able to reorient SN8 into the vertical position right on target

but could not slow the velocity down enough. SN8 hit the ground hard on the aft end, causing an

explosion and complete destruction of the Starship (Manley).

            SN8 was hailed as a success despite its destruction. A couple of weeks before the launch

Musk had given the chances of a successful flight as about a third, and SN8 completed the

majority of its flight profile. SN6 simply went up 150 meters on a single Raptor engine and set

itself back down. SN8 flew to 12.5 kilometers, flipped itself to a horizontal position, guided itself

to the landing pad while free falling, and reoriented itself to the vertical position. The only piece

missing was slowing itself down enough to land in one piece (Manley). The rapid pace of testing

would continue as SN9 was mostly assembled by this point but there was a slight delay as the

stand it was on deformed, causing the next prototype to lean slightly against the wall of the high

bay in which it was constructed (Schlang). 

            SN9 was rolled to the launch pad on December 22, after one of the forward fins damaged

in the tip over was replaced. Throughout January, SN9 underwent an extensive testing campaign

involving pressure tests and static fires. Consequently, the static fires revealed a problem with

two Raptors leading them to be switched out. During the testing SN10 was completed in the high

bay and was rolled out to a second test mount beside SN9 leading to an impressive scene of the

two rockets side by side. On February 2, SN9 was ready to launch (Schlang).

            SN9’s ascent mirrored that of SN8 except that it only reached an apogee of ten

kilometers. During the flip maneuver the nose initially pointed to far down, but the body flaps
were able to get the Starship back under control for its downward descent. As SN9 neared the

landing pad it attempted to light two engines, but one choked and failed to fully light. The single

Raptor was able to swing the ship into a vertical position, but it was not strong enough to keep it

there, and SN9 hit the ground and exploded at about a 45-degree angle, destroying the Starship

(Schlang).

SN9 and SN10 together at the launchpad. (Credit: Nicholas D’Alessandro)

On the surface, SN9 didn’t show any significant improvement over SN8, but SpaceX

being able to get two prototypes in a row to apogee and have them crash in the right spot on their

return is impressive; however, SN9 did differ in that its crash was caused by an engine failure

and not a tank failure like SN8, although the exact cause of the engine failure was not released.

Despite being within a half of a kilometer of the SN9 explosion, SN10 was undamaged, and sat

on its test stand ready to fly. About a month later, it would get its chance (Schlang).

            Throughout the Starship development Elon Musk has been active on Twitter answering

questions from the community. After the SN9 flight he was asked why they didn’t light all three
engines during the landing burn, to increase the chances of a successful landing if one Raptor

failed to ignite, to which he responded, “We were too dumb”. He later confirmed that SN10

would attempt to light all three engines when landing, and assuming none failed, immediately

turned one off. Throughout February, SN10 underwent pressure tests and static fires, resulting in

one Raptor being switched out. Musk gave SN10 a 60% chance of success (DeRosa).

SN10 beginning its climb. (Credit: SpaceX)

SN10 took to the sky on the evening of March third, and followed the same flight profile

as its predecessors, although one of the engine’s exhaust displayed an orange tone, a possible

indication of a fuel rich reaction in the combustion chamber. When SN10 approached the landing

pad, all three engines lit and swung it into the vertical position, before two cut off, but the single

one wasn’t enough. The engine lacked the thrust necessary to slow SN10 down, and it hit hard.

Additionally, three of the six landing legs failed to lock into place, making the landing even

harder. Despite this defeat, SN10 stayed upright but rested on its engines and skirt. Leftover
methane leaked out of the damaged engines, leading to an explosion destroying the ship eight

minutes later (DeRosa).

            It was later revealed that the lack of thrust was due to helium, which was pumped into the

fuel tank to solve the pressure issue from SN8, and it got into the Raptor engine reducing its

thrust. The landing wasn’t completely successful, but it still demonstrated a step forward, as a

little more thrust and better landing legs would have rendered the test a success. SpaceX’s

iterative design process will continue to push out prototypes until these problems are solved, and

as SN10 went up in flames, SN11 was already being stacked to take the next flight (DeRosa).   

            Rocket development has traditionally been cloaked in secrecy as the same technology

that is used by nations to get to orbit is the same technology that is used for weapons of mass

destruction. SpaceX has turned this tradition on its head as they as fearlessly crash, burn, and

return right in the public eye. This breakneck development has captivated the public’s attention

and been a critical part of the revival of public interest in spaceflight. The next giant leap may be

soon, and it may be from Boca Chica.

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