Tesla CEO Elon Musk delivered an update regarding his SpaceX Starship that was designed to bring people to Mars, saying that in the next two to three years, the company will be able to make it cheaper to send the ship to Earth's orbit.
However, while Musk's presentation on Thursday evening detailed his specific vision of humanity's interplanetary future, he was wary of the operational details of the spaceship. The SpaceX rocket Starship will have to overcome several technical and regulatory hurdles before it can be allowed to fly to Earth's orbit or fulfill a contract worth billions of dollars.
Starship's Cheaper Costs
But the billionaire entrepreneur said that he believed the Starship would soon be capable of establishing a self-sufficient city on Mars. He argued that the endeavor would require transporting a million tons of material from Earth to the red planet.
During his speech, Musk said that this is the first time in the Earth's 4.5-billion-year history that such a feat has become possible. The tech CEO said that humans should take the opportunity and be as quick as possible because, in his words, Civilization is a little fragile these days, as per the New York Times.
Musk said that the SpaceX Starship will be able to reach Earth's orbits for less than $10 million per flight in the next two to three years. The space company plans to launch the space vessel at SpaceX's southern Texas facility. Starship is also the biggest and most powerful rocket in the company's line of ships.
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SpaceX, being a private company, does not disclose its financial information, such as revenue or costs. However, Musk said that his cost estimate covered all of the space company's expenses to launch Starship. The tech CEO said that excluding fixed costs, the actual number could even lower.
As per Wall Street Journal, SpaceX said that Starship will be used for its ambitious missions and is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. It forms an important part of the space company's business and is expected to deliver hundreds of satellites to orbit at once.
Starlink Satellites
The situation comes after Musk announced that SpaceX lost up to 40 Starlink satellites that were launched into orbit last week due to a geomagnetic storm. The space company on Thursday sent 49 satellites into low Earth orbit using a Falcon 9 rocket.
However, roughly 80% of those Starlink satellites were "significantly impacted" by a geomagnetic storm that occurred on Friday. The weather phenomenon is triggered by disturbances between Earth's magnetic field and charged particles that come from the sun, which is known as solar winds.
In a statement, SpaceX said that the speed and intensity of the storm caused the "atmospheric drag" affecting the satellites to increase to about 50% higher than previous launches. The situation has made it much more challenging for the satellites to reach their orbital position.
The space company said that Starlink attempted to fly the satellites in their "safe mode" in an attempt to reduce the atmospheric drag. However, it was still not enough to allow the satellites to reach their planned destination, Business Insider reported.
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