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A photo of Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, "Adding Mobile Rear Fins" to Starship's First Rocket in Boca Chica, Texas.
@Elon Musk
SpaceX is deeply committed to the development of its Starship rocket, with recent updates from CEO Elon Musk showing the company's first vehicle assembled at its Texas facility.
"Add the mobile drifts to the Starship Mk1 in Boca Chica, Texas," Musk said in a tweet on Sunday.
The photo showed the stainless steel hull of the rocket while SpaceX fixed two large fins at the base. Starship is a huge next generation vehicle that the Musk company is building to ship cargo and up to 100 people to the Moon and Mars.
SpaceX has successfully reused parts of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets but Starship would bring the company's ambitions much further. Starship is designed to be fully reusable. It launches and lands in one block, making spaceflight more like commercial air travel.
The company is deeply committed to its Starship development plans, according to a federal document outlining its plans in May. SpaceX recently flew a prototype called "Starhopper" during a short flight at an altitude of about 500 feet. Starhopper flew about a minute and then landed on a concrete slab.
Starship's testing program should then include rocket flights at an altitude of about two miles, then at a distance of 62 miles, to reach the edge of the space.
SpaceX has regularly raised more than $ 1.3 billion of equity this year, thanks to key funding from Starship and Starlink, the company's ambitious Internet satellite project.
Musk said the top of the spacecraft would feature large mobile fins, as well as several other pieces of equipment. While the Starhopper prototype featured only one of the company's Raptor engines, Musk said this ship would have three engines.
The company's founder also said that SpaceX had adjusted a key element of Starship's design, the rocket featuring two large fins at the base, instead of three. Musk expressed skepticism about this change but said SpaceX will stick to that plan for the first two rockets.
"The current analyzes, in which I'm not completely used, suggest that two rear wing with separate legs mounted on the cell will be lighter, so that's the plan for Mk1 / Mk2," Musk said.
The second rocket is built simultaneously in a facility near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Last week, Musk shared a photo of Boca Chica's installation with the legend "Droid Junkyard, Tatooine", referring to the fictional planet of the Star Wars movie franchise. The photo showed the rocket partially assembled in the background of a tent filled with material.
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