SpaceX shared new details Saturday on its plan to make humans interplanetary.
Chief Executive Elon Musk stood in front the the company’s next-generation Starship spacecraft built in Boca Chica, Texas and delivered a more thorough overview of the company’s plans for the rocket program. Musk said the “holy grail” for the program is around “rapid reusability.” Musk said the goal is to accomplish rapid reusability to the point where the company can fly the booster 20 times a day and fly Starship up to four times a day.
Musk believes that through rapid testing, the company will achieve reliability to carry humans on Starship as early as next year.
The Super Heavy booster that will carry Starship into orbit will be about 1.5 times the height of the Starship itself. It will be powered by 37 Raptor engines.
Musk also detailed how it will be “totally nuts” to see Starship land.
The Starship will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in a horizontal position to increase drag “like a skydiver.” Starship will then perform a flip maneuver to become vertical for touch-down on six legs.
The Starship Mk1 is expected to conduct a sub-orbital, 70,000 feet test flight within two months. Musk said that the following test flight could be an orbital launch with the full Super Heavy booster.
SpaceX believes that someday Starship will carry up to 100 passengers on long-haul planet-to-planet flights.
Watch the full event above.