Technology 2 min read

Elon Musk Dumps BFR, Renames Mars Spaceship 'Starship'

Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com

Elon Musk announced a name change yesterday for the BFR to “Starship”.

“Renaming BFR to Starship,” was Elon Musk‘s tweet late Monday night which sent the Twitterverse in a frenzy again.

To be more specific, Starship will be the new name of the Mars spaceship that SpaceX will use in the future for interplanetary exploration. The Falcon Heavy rocket, which will shoot the spacecraft out of Earth’s gravitational pull, will be called Super Heavy.

“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),” Musk explained on another tweet.

The Starship Super Heavy

Since its inception, the Starship, which is yet to be built by SpaceX, underwent several name changes. Back in 2016, the ship and rocket booster was initially called the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT).”

From MCT, SpaceX later changed it to Interplanetary Transport System (ITS)” in the same year of the release of SpaceX’s design for future Mars colonies. Then, during the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Australia last year, Musk unveiled the Big Falcon Rocket Spaceship design.

For months, the futuristic space transport vehicle was widely called the BFR. However, Musk appears to have some affinity with the term “star,” even calling the mannequin he sent into space aboard his Tesla Roadster “Starman” and his satellite broadband network “Starlink.”

Epic Reactions to Starship

The name Starship draws some mixed reactions from Musk’s avid Twitter followers. Some appear to be genuinely amused by the name.

https://twitter.com/pascalpixel/status/1064803371062747136

On the other hand, there are others who don’t seem to like the idea.

https://twitter.com/scvaliant/status/1064741987839090690

According to Musk and SpaceX’s timetable, the future interplanetary spaceship will begin its test flights next year. SpaceX scheduled the first full-scale unmanned journey to Mars for 2022 and the first crewed flight for 2024.

Do you like BFR’s new name?

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Chelle Fuertes

Chelle is the Product Management Lead at INK. She's an experienced SEO professional as well as UX researcher and designer. She enjoys traveling and spending time anywhere near the sea with her family and friends.

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