At the heart of Elon Musk’s ambitions to send humans to Mars — and propel SpaceX to the largest initial public offering in history — is a gargantuan 407-foot-tall rocket known as Starship.
The AI-to-satellite conglomerate led by the world’s richest person has ploughed more than $15bn into developing the largest rocket ever built. In regulatory filings for its IPO this month, SpaceX described the vehicle as central to its plans for future growth.
SpaceX hopes Starship will become the world’s first fully reusable launch system. Recycling both stages of the rocket, while dramatically increasing payload capacity, would allow the company to launch more equipment into orbit, carry larger satellites and eventually undertake missions to the Moon and Mars at far lower cost.