Will Starship Be The Most Powerful Rocket In The World?
A rocket’s power can be a great metric to find out what it will be capable of. Starship is meant to be one of the biggest and most powerful rockets in the world. This brings up the questions of how powerful will the rocket actually be, and are other agencies or companies working on something even better?
Once completed Starship will be the most powerful rocket in the world. Other large launch vehicles such as SLS won’t even produce more power. This is thanks to Starship’s large size combined with a planned 33 Raptor engines on the first stage alone. However other agencies around the world are also working on next-generation rockest that could rival Starship’s expected power.
The space industry as a whole has been going through an immense boom in recent years. This includes not only larger agencies and companies such as NASA and SpaceX but also smaller companies working on small-lift launch vehicles. Many agencies around the world are also picking up their speed and working towards ambitious goals.
How Powerful Will Starship Be?
Starship will no doubt be extremely powerful. However, with SpaceX’s constant changes to the Raptor engines, Starship weight, size, and more, it can be hard to get an exact number of how powerful. Luckily SpaceX has provided a good insight into the estimated expected power of a finished Starship. Super Heavy alone will produce 72 Meganewtons of thrust. This is equivalent to over 16 million pounds of maximum thrust. When you combine the power of the upper stage as well you get an incredibly powerful launch vehicle.
All of this power will facilitate a massive carrying capacity to low Earth orbit and beyond for Starship. Specifically, SpaceX is confident the launch vehicle will be capable of carrying over 100 tons into low Earth orbit. With the improvements to the rocket and the Raptor engines, it’s possible we see a 150-ton carrying capacity to low Earth orbit. Additionally, Starship plans to launch a secondary Starship once one is already in orbit and refill the initial rocket. This will allow the rocket to carry even more weight and go further distances. With this amount of power, it means that if Starship were to launch today it would be the most powerful rocket ever built and launched.
What Makes Starship So Powerful?
Size – There are a few key parts of Starship that help produce so much power. One of those is Starship’s size. The 120m tall rocket is practically all propellant storage. Almost the entirety of Super Heavy is for propellant and about 2/3rds of the first stage are propellant storage. The Starship upper stage has a propellant capacity of over 1200 tons while the booster has a capacity right around 3400 tons. Together a full starship will carry almost 5000 tons of propellant. All of which is needed to power the Raptor engines throughout the launch vehicle.
Raptor Engines – When it comes to actually producing the power, the Raptor engines are responsible. In current prototypes, Starship has a total of 35 Raptor engines. This includes 6 on the upper stage (3 normal and 3 vacuum) and 29 on the booster. However, Starship is constantly changing and future models are planned to have 39 Raptors in total. SpaceX is working on adding 4 Raptor engines to Super Heavy bringing it up from 29 to 33. Each Raptor engine is just over 3 meters tall and produces around 2 meganewtons of thrust. SpaceX’s Raptor engine has been going through a lot of testing and is improving rapidly. Specifically, Elon has continued to tweet about the progress and mentioned that the next iteration Raptor 2 will produce around 245 tons or almost 2.5 meganewtons of thrust. The Raptor engine’s success will have a direct effect on Starship’s overall power when completed.
How Does NASA’s Space Launch System Compare?
Now that we know exactly how powerful Starship is, let’s compare it to a similar size up-and-coming launch vehicle. The rocket I am talking about is NASA’s SLS or Space Launch System. The SLS is NASA’s biggest rocket they have ever made barely beating the Saturn V. This rocket is built for the Artemis mission which entails putting humans back on the Moon and setting up a more permanent residence and base. This ambitious goal requires a lot of power if the agency wants to transport not only humans but supplies as well. The SLS is 111 meters tall and weighs around 5,750,000 pounds.
The rocket is also supposed to have multiple variants. Looking at the largest, the Block 2 variant, SLS is meant to be capable of around 130 tons into low Earth orbit. If Starship is capable of carrying 150 tons then the Space Launch System will not have a higher carrying capacity once developed. Looking at thrust produced however NASA’s new rocket gets blown out of the water. The SLS is meant to produce around 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust. This is almost half of its Starship counterpart at over 16 million pounds. Comparing the power of both these rockets it becomes clear that if both continue development as expected then Starship will easily be more powerful.
What Other Rockets Could Rival Starship In The Future?
We looked at NASA’s Space Launch System but what about other less known rockets. The launch vehicle I want to mention and compare is the Long March 9. This is a next-generation rocket currently in development in China. This rocket is the ninth iteration of the Long March rocket family. However, this one is meant to be the biggest and most powerful by far.
There is not a lot of information on this rocket and its power but we do have some rough estimations. The rocket will stand at 108m tall and is meant to be completed by 2030. The rocket is also supposed to be capable of launching an impressive 140 tons into low Earth orbit. The first stage is powered by 16 YF-135 liquid oxygen kerosene engines, each producing over 300 tons of thrust. When looking at the maximum thrust it is estimated to be around 5760 tons. This equates to 11,520,000 pounds of thrust. While this is a few million more than SLS, it is still almost 5 million pounds behind Starship’s expected maximum thrust. This suggests that if Starship is successful, it will not only be the most powerful rocket in the world but also hold that title for many years to come.
Conclusion
Rockets need to be powerful in order to get out of Earth’s strong atmosphere. Additionally, there is a relation between how much power a rocket has and the amount of cargo it can bring into low Earth orbit and beyond. Currently, in the space industry, many different agencies and companies around the world are producing the most powerful rockets we have ever seen. When looking at other powerful future rockets such as SLS and the Long March 9, it becomes clear that Starship is expected to be more powerful. Starship’s size combined with some of the most innovative and powerful engines in the world means it is expected to produce around 16 million pounds of maximum thrust. Starship is not only expected to be the biggest and more powerful for a short period of time but many years to come. However, SpaceX still has a long way to go prior to a fully successful and operational Starship. With the upcoming first orbital test flight, we will see how Starship performs and how it improves over time.