SpaceX rocket Big Falcon Rocket gets Starship as a new name

The SpaceX rocket Big Falcon Rocket will soon be renamed. Elon Musk announces that the large new rocket that is still under development is going to be called Starship. There is a clear reason for the name change.

Musk reports via his Twitter page that the name change is being implemented. He indicated that Starship is, in fact, the name for the second, upper rocket stage, which is entirely formed by a 55m long spacecraft. The first rocket staircase, which is needed to escape the earth’s gravity, is given the name Super Heavy.

Not everyone is happy with the most recent change of name. A Twitter user noticed that the name Starship is only logical if the thing actually visits another planetary system. Musk could not, of course, let it react to it; he said that later versions of Starship will actually do that.

It is not the first time that the rocket gets a new name. The former BFR was called Mars Colonization Transport in 2015 and a year later it was named Interplanetary Transport System. That became Big Falcon Rocket and now so Starship in 2017.

Elon Musk recently recalled a radical change with the new 118-meter-high rocket, without going into any further details. It is not clear whether that change was purely the name. Starship can make an orbital flight for the first time in 2020 and is designed to transport very heavy loads and get deep into space. With this, for example, a base can be supplied on Mars. Both rocket stages are reusable and can land vertically, so the costs for a launch will be relatively low.