SpaceX Starship next to SLS rolling out of NASA's VAB by James Vaughan

Picture of the Day 25/11/2021 - SpaceX's full stack Starship Super Heavy rolling out of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) next to Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at Kennedy Space Center by American photographer and concept artist James Vaughan. More of his aerospace and defense concept art here.

SpaceX Starship at Mars Base Alpha by Caspar Stanley

SpaceX's Starship standing in front of a geodesic dome at Mars Base Alpha by Danish freelance 3D artist Caspar Stanley. It's quite likely the first crewed Starships sent to Mars and acting as temporary habitats for the first settlers will stay on Mars forever, forming the basis of Mars Base Alpha built around them, as can be seen in SpaceX's own renderings.

Starship spaceport at Mars Base Alpha

A futuristic vision of a Starman walking past spaceport at Mars Base Alpha in 2080 by YouTuber iamVisual. There are several SpaceX Starships and Starman's Tesla Cybertruck parked at the spaceport. We estimate such sight will be possible much sooner – in around 2040.

SpaceX Starship on Mars by Erik Corshammar

SpaceX's Starship standing proud on Mars with astronauts from the first human mission to the Red planet - a vision by Swedish space designer Erik Corshammar (Erc X). More of his art here.

Infographic of SpaceX Starship timeline by Ryan MacDonald

Exoplanet astronomer at Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute Ryan MacDonald (known on social media as Martian Colonist) has created an infographic of SpaceX's aspirational timeline for Starship's first missions to the Moon and Mars.

We estimate realistically the timeline will slip for a few years with #dearMoon mission happening in 2025, Lunar Starship demo landing in 2026, humans returning to the Moon in 2027, first cargo mission landing on Mars in 2027 and first crew mission landing on Mars in 2031.

SpaceX Lunar Starship delivering cargo for Artemis Base Camp

SpaceX's Lunar Starship, selected to return humans to the Moon, delivering cargo and crew for NASA's Artemis Base Camp on the Moon's South Pole. Concept artwork created by US 3D artist Nick Henning.

Starman waiting to board a Starship flight

Picture of the Day 14/06/2021 - Starman waiting to board a SpaceX's Starship flight by Swedish space designer Erik Corshammar (Erc X). More of his art here.

A pair of SpaceX cargo Starships on Mars by Bart Caldwell

Picture of the Day 06/05/2021 - a pair of SpaceX's cargo Starships on Mars by American space artist Bart Caldwell, known as Neopork.

SpaceX successfully lands Starship SN15 test vehicle!

Today SpaceX for the first time successfully landed a Starship test vehicle - Starship SN15. In four previous attempts since December 2020 Starship test vehicles successfully performed launch and "skydiver" belly flop maneuver but exploded during the landing attempt (in case of SN8, SN9 and SN11) or soon after (SN10). Here is full footage of today's flight from SpaceX's official livestream.

Starship is the second (spacecraft) stage of the fully reusable two-stage super heavy-lift launch vehicle currently developed by leading NewSpace company SpaceX. The main purpose of building such a large rocket with more than double the power of Saturn V is to enable the colonization of Mars. But Starship will be capable to do a lot of different tasks – to place satellites or space stations in orbit, ferry passengers to space stations or the Moon and even ferry passengers or cargo between any destinations on Earth within an hour.

Elon Musk arrives to Mars Base Alpha

Who will guess the year? SpaceX's CEO and chief designer Elon Musk finally arrives to the spaceport of Mars Base Alpha by American comics artist Eli Burton, creator of The Adventures of Starman.

SpaceX Starship interior concept for 20 to 40 passengers by Paul King

British interior architect / designer Paul King has created his detailed concept of SpaceX's Starship interior layout for 20 (one shift) to 40 (two shifts sharing the same crew pods) passengers. Concept divides the pressurized living space into six 2.5m high levels (here shown from top to bottom).

Level 6 - Flight deck

Level 5 - Crew mess hall

SpaceX Mars Base Alpha in 4K UHD quality

When Elon Musk gave his 2nd annual presentation of the Starship architecture (then called BFR or Big Falcon Rocket) in September 2017, the presentation contained an animation of Mars Base Alpha buildup. Granted, the representation looks more like Sim City on Mars with generic buildings in octagonal pattern, but it's the best visual overview of Mars Base Alpha buildup SpaceX has officially provided yet. Here are images from that animation in 4K UHD quality we haven't seen been posted anywhere else.

Closeup of Mars Base Alpha:

Buildup of Mars Base Alpha

1st stage - initial base:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

2nd stage - mid-sized base:

Click HERE for 4K UHD resolution

NASA selects SpaceX Lunar Starship to return humans to the Moon

Today NASA announced it has selected SpaceX "to continue development of the first commercial human lander that will safely carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface" as part of the Artemis program. A year ago it was announced three contenders were selected to compete for this mission - SpaceX, Blue Origin's led "National Team" and Dynetics - and SpaceX revealed it is working for a lunar optimized Starship. Now we know SpaceX's proposal has won the race. In a milestone-based fixed-price contract SpaceX will be able to receive $2.89 billion to develop the Lunar Starship. The year when SpaceX needs to land humans back to the Moon is not specified yet.

In addition to today's announcement, NASA shared latest official render of SpaceX's Lunar Starship which slightly differs from last year's version:

First humans on Mars

Young Irish 3D artist Matthew Ryan has created a stunning animation of a SpaceX's Starship getting people from Earth to Mars for the first time ever. Here is the final scene with a group of Starmen disembarking from Starship on Mars:

Full animation here:

SpaceX Starship interior concept for 100 passengers by Joseph Lantz

Joseph Lantz has created his concept for the interior layout of SpaceX's 100-passenger Starship (the passenger capacity goal stated by Elon Musk). Therefore this concept isn't meant for the first crew Starships on Mars used as temporary habitats for the first few years (those first Starships will have much smaler crew). The concept divides the pressurized living space into 8 decks (here shown from top to bottom) and follows a common design choice of a central stairway through all the decks.

Deck 8 - Observation

Astronaut relaxing near a SpaceX Starship spaceport

Picture of the Day 30/03/2021 - Astronaut leaning against his Mars rover derived from a retro car near a SpaceX Starship spaceport by American video game concept artist Darren Bacon in collaboration with parody account Bored Elon.

SpaceX Starship landing on Mars by Kendall Dirks

Picture of the Day 11/03/2021 - SpaceX's crew Starship landing on Mars by young American 3D artist Kendall Dirks. More of his art here.

SpaceX 100+ Starship fleet arriving to Mars

Video animation with SpaceX's colonial fleet of 100+ Starships arriving to Mars by Austrian 3D environment artist Roger Bootsma. More of his art here.

Updated design of #dearMoon Starship (2021)

On March 3 dearMoon Project opened application process for 8 crew member spots on SpaceX's first crewed deep space mission - #dearMoon Starship flight around the Moon scheduled for 2023. Applications are open for everyone now, not just the artists as originally was planned. The applications page contains some official renders of Starship's updated design with the most visible differences being in main window design:

SpaceX has downselected 7 potential Mars landing sites for Starship

On September 2019 it was revealed SpaceX has selected several Starship candidate landing sites on Mars. The candidate sites were located in Southern Arcadia Planitia East of Erebus Montes and one in Phlegra Montes.

Since then SpaceX has conducted several workshops with the Mars science community to evaluate and narrow the list of candidate landing sites. All the sites must fit several criteria:

1. close to significant deposits of water/ice, a required resource for in situ propellant production and a consumable to support habitation;
2. elevation below -2 km (with respect to the MOLA geoid) that can support the delivery of large payloads, with -3 km preferred;
3. latitude must be <40° for solar power and thermal management, and closer to the equator is desirable;
4. multiple separate landing locations spaced within a few km of each other, to support the multiple missions needed to grow an outpost;
5. slopes should be <5° over a 10 m length scale and the chance of impacting a rock greater than 0.5 m high (1 m diameter) should be <5%;
6. landing site must be radar reflective to enable measurement of the distance to the surface, and it must be load bearing to support the spacecraft at touchdown.

Recently an abstract with the conclusions has been published (the results of the study will be presented in two weeks, at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference), pointing out 4 prime and 3 secondary potential Starship landing sites selected for further study and located in Phlegra Montes, Erebus Montes and Southern Arcadia Planitia:

• PM-1 has the lowest latitude and elevation of the Phlegra Montes sites, a clear association with LDAs (local ice deposits expressed as lobate debris aprons), well developed polygons (one of the indicators of ice-related morphologies), and has the highest SWIM (Subsurface Water Ice Mapping) score for geomorphic indicators of ice;
• AP-1 (Arcadia Planitia) appears to be one of the safest sites and has a moderate combined SWIM score for ice;
• AP-9 has the thickest ice from radar returns (of the Arcadia Planitia sites) and geomorphology indicating shallow ice. It has the highest combined SWIM score for ice, but appears slightly rocky and rough;
• EM-16 has a clear association with an LDA with nearby brain terrain and the strongest radar return for shallow ice and the highest combined SWIM score of the Erebus Montes sites;
• AP-8 (Arcadia Planitia) appears to be one of the safest sites and has the highest neutron and combined SWIM scores for ice;
• EM-15 (Erebus Montes) is associated with a prominent but less extensive LDA, has well developed polygons, nearby brain terrain and appears smooth;
• PM-7 is adjacent to lineated valley fill (attributed to glacial flow) and appears to be the safest of the Phlegra sites.

We highlighted selected ★ prime and ★ secondary sites on the map: