Starship· guided tour

Fuel and Oxygen Tanks

the steel tube

Most of Starship is this one steel tube, split inside into a tank of liquid methane and a tank of liquid oxygen. Bare, shiny steel is why it looks like a water tower.

Material

Stainless steel

Width

9 m

Fuel

Methane + oxygen

How it works

Earlier rockets used carbon fibre or aluminium to save weight. Starship uses stainless steel instead, because it stays strong at both the freezing cold of the fuel inside and the heat of re-entry outside, and it is far cheaper to build.

For the grown-up

Methane (rather than RP-1) was chosen partly because it can, in principle, be synthesised on Mars from atmospheric CO2 and subsurface water ice via the Sabatier reaction, which is what a return trip without carrying fuel both ways depends on.

SpaceX Starship