Starship

Starship is SpaceX’s fully reusable spacecraft and Super Heavy launch vehicle under development for transporting crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Starship is SpaceX’s fully reusable spacecraft and Super Heavy launch vehicle, designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. It is billed as the world’s most powerful launch vehicle and a system built for rapid reuse.

What it is

Starship is a two-stage super heavy-lift launch system: the Starship spacecraft sits atop the Super Heavy booster. Both stages are made from stainless steel and use methalox propellant (liquid methane and liquid oxygen). When stacked and fully fueled, the vehicle stands about 121.3 m tall and 9 m in diameter.

Why it matters

SpaceX says Starship is designed to lift more than 100 metric tonnes to orbit in a fully reusable configuration, which could dramatically lower the cost of access to space. The system is central to plans for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, and it has implications for Canadian space policy, satellite launch markets, and aerospace research.

Key details

As of May 27, 2026, Starship had launched 12 times from Starbase, Texas, with 7 successful flights and 5 failures. The system uses Raptor engines (sea-level and vacuum variants). One secondary source estimated SpaceX had spent at least $5 billion on the program by the end of 2023.