SpaceX rocket Big Falcon Rocket to be renamed Starshipship

The SpaceX rocket Big Falcon Rocket will soon be renamed. Elon Musk announces that the large new rocket still in development will be called Starship. No clear reason has been given for the name change.

Musk reports via his Twitter page that the name change is 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 stage required to escape Earth’s gravity is given the name Super Heavy.

Not everyone is happy with the most recent name change. A Twitter user commented that the name Starship only makes sense if the thing actually visits another planetary system. Musk couldn’t help but react to that; he said that later versions of Starship will actually do that.

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

Elon Musk recently hinted at a radical change to the new 118 meter high rocket, without going into further detail. It is not clear whether that change was purely a name. Starship can make its first orbital flight in 2020 and is designed to carry very heavy payloads and go deep into space. With this, for example, a base on Mars can be supplied. Both rocket stages will be reusable and can land vertically, so that the costs for a launch will be relatively very low.