Part 2 of the series looked at how Starship will radically change moon Missions.

Here we look at how mass to orbit is radically changed with the introduction of Starship.

Mass to Orbit

Starship radically changes the amount of mass to orbit that will be needed. Each launch can carry between 100 and 200 tons of payload to orbit.

To put this in perspective, not counting Starlink, the total mass to orbit in 2024 was around 400 metric tons. Which means only 2 to 4 Starships is all that is needed to do the same job.

That makes a lot of other rockets redundant - yep, not needed.

The radical impact of Starship on mass to orbit is not just about each launch being large, but also about the number of launches.

SpaceX aims to produce one new Starship per month, then week, then day. With reusability, they also aim for at least one launch per day of each ship. That is hundreds of thousands of tons of payload to orbit every year.

Hundreds of thousands of tons to orbit.

_{Click image below to read Not Enough Space Payload}

Next . . .

Part 4 will look at how Starship will bring a radicle change to space comms.