SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is scheduled to detail the company’s long-awaited ‘Interplanetary Transport system’ today at the International Astronautical Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. Minutes before the CEO was set to take the stage, a video emerged that teases the new rocket designed to take people to Mars for initial colonization missions.
The video appears to show SpaceX’s new rocket — the BFR, or ‘Big Falcon Rocket’ (dubbed ‘Big Fucking Rocket’ internally) — as well as the company’s interplanetary spaceship design, BFS — or ‘Big Falcon Spaceship’ which carries the same ‘Big Fucking’ moniker internally. It depicts a reusable rocket designed to propel the craft well beyond our own orbit while using solar sails to make its way to mars.
All told, the spacecraft employs some 200 kW of power, according to the video, which makes the sails indispensable. Solar sails harness energy from the sun in the form of radiation. The radiation exerted by the sun is captured on large mirrors, much like the wind is captured in a ship’s sales.
In the video, you can see the booster detach from the main craft. It’ll then return to Earth to add fuel, and then return it to orbit to meet up with the main craft. All of this is done under the booster crafts own power, and it too is (presumably) reusable.
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Details are still slim, but we’ll update as they become available.
via The Verge
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