Starship would reach orbit this year: Elon Musk

Texas/US: Elon Musk announced on Thursday that in 2022, his company SpaceX's interplanetary vehicle, Starship, will get to orbit. However, during his address at the Starbase facility in Texas, he has not pinpointed the launch date, Agence France-Presse reported.

The orbital test has not received clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the US. Musk said that he is optimistic that FAA will grant him clearance. But if it didn't, he is prepared to shift the launching operation at SpaceX's launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Starship is the biggest spacecraft ever built, which is 120 meters in length, and its upper stage is mounted on a silver Super Heavy first-stage rocket. The Saturn V rockets which carted astronauts to the moon were smaller.

The Starship is made of stainless steel and is entirely reusable. The most powerful rocket ever, Starship, could bear payloads amounting to 100 metric tonnes to orbits around Earth. SpaceX dreams of shipping cargo to the Moon, Mars etc., leveraging the craft. Meanwhile, it has signed a contract with the company for the ship in order to transport astronauts on the agency's Artemis programme.

On his address on Thursday, he repeated his vision of colonising Mars, the humanities first step to conquer beyond the solar system. He sees it as 'life insurance' in the event of severe catastrophes on Earth.

Further, he also staged an illustration of Starship being refuelled, sending another ship, during deep space explorations. He further said that each Starship booster would have 33 Raptors- the latest-generation engines. Within years, the cost of space launches will decrease considerably, and rockets could be made for commercial purposes.