- Elon Musk and his company SpaceX have been working on a gigantic, 387-foot-long spacecraft that's designed to eventually send humans to Mars.
- The spacecraft has been dubbed Big Falcon Rocket (BFR for short), but Musk posted on Twitter on Monday that the rocket now has a new name: Starship.
- SpaceX released the final design for the rocket in September, and plans to launch the first human voyage to Mars on the Starship by 2024.
SpaceX has long been touting a rocket in the works that wants to be the first to put people on Mars, and all that hype now comes with a new name.
Elon Musk, the company's CEO, took to Twitter late Monday night to reveal the new name of the 387-foot SpaceX rocket. Up until now, the rocket has been operating under the name Big Falcon Rocket - dubbed BFR, and also referred to by many (including Musk) as the "Big F-----g Rocket."
But now, the rocket is named Starship.
The spacecraft technically consists of two parts: the spaceship that holds people and cargo, called Starship, and the booster that launches the rocket to Mars, called Super Heavy.
SpaceX's BFR project has made headlines for what Musk sees as the rocket's end goal: to eventually bring humans to Mars. Last month, Musk said in an interview that SpaceX is eyeing 2024 for the launch.
Final designs for the rocket, released in September, present a fully reusable booster and fully reusable spaceship, designed to hold 100 people or 150 tons of cargo. Musk estimates the rocket will cost between $2 billion and $10 billion to create.
To help understand the magnitude of what Musk and his thousands of employees at SpaceX are trying to accomplish, Business Insider created an interactive size-comparison graphic.
Next to the rendering of the rocket shown below, you'll see a series of familiar objects at the rocket's base. (Some are so small that you may have to scroll down a bit.) Toggle through the 20 comparisons by clicking "next" or "back" to get a sense of the rocket's scale:
Technically, two parts: Starship is the spaceship/upper stage & Super Heavy is the rocket booster needed to escape Earth's deep gravity well (not needed for other planets or moons)
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2018