Elon Musk tells SpaceX employees that its Starship rocket is the top priority now [View all]
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/07/elon-musk-email-to-spacex-employees-starship-is-the-top-priority.html
SpaceX launched astronauts for the first time barely a week ago but CEO Elon Musk does not want the company resting on its laurels.
Instead, Musk urged SpaceX employees to accelerate progress on its next-generation Starship rocket dramatically and immediately, writing Saturday in a company-wide email seen by CNBC.
Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship, Musk wrote in the email.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBCs request for comment on Musks email.
His space company launched a pair of NASA astronauts on May 30, marking a historic first for SpaceX and a crucial step forward for the U.S. space program. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule carried the astronauts to orbit and on to the International Space Station. That mission is ongoing, as Musk noted, with the spacecraft set to return the astronauts to Earth in the next couple months.
The Falcon 9 rocket that launched the astronauts is the mainstay of SpaceXs business, with 85 missions over the past decade. But Starship represents the companys aim to make obsolete even the cost-saving advances of its Falcon 9 fleet. Its Falcon 9 rockets are partially reusable, as the company often lands the large booster stage of the rocket and recovers the rockets nosecone. But Musks goal is to make Starship fully reusable envisioning a rocket that is more akin to a commercial airplane, with short turnaround times between flights.
Musk last year unveiled the Starship prototype, built of stainless steel and dwarfing the companys existing spacecraft. SpaceX is developing Starship with the goal of launching as many as 100 people at a time on missions to the moon and Mars.
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