Elon Musk renames popular Mars spacecraft Big Falcon Rocket to Starship

SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) is widely popular since it’s expected to take people to Mars and also because of its name. However, to everyone’s surprise, CEO Elon Musk recently decided to rename the rocket as ‘Starship’, without citing any reason.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is currently working on its BFR that is aimed at taking people to Mars and Moon. However, the spaceship, which gained popularity because of its name, is being renamed to Starship, as Musk announced on his Twitter.

Musk said that Starship will be the name of the spaceship/upper stage, whereas, ‘Super Heavy’ will be the rocket booster required to escape Earth’s deep gravity.

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)

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2018

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Soon after Musk’s tweet, a Twitter user pointed out that the new name is technically inaccurate unless the craft is sent on a mission to another star system, to which Musk replied that its later versions will. ALso, he replied to another tweet that the astronauts on the craft will be called ‘Starship Tooters’.

Later versions will

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2018

Starship Tooters

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2018

Few days ago Musk also tweeted that the 387ft spaceship was being redesigned and that the new version is ‘very exciting. Delightfully counter-intuitive’. Starship is expected to replace SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, costing approximating $5 billion, and will be able to take up to 100 tons of cargo or 100 passengers to Mars.

However, BFR’s name-changing isn’t something new. According to BBC News, the in-process spaceship started off as Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), later became Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), then Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) and now to Starship.

Back in September, Musk announced his plans to make Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa as the first passenger to take a tour around the moon on the spacecraft in 2023. As of for his plans for Mars, the company hopes to begin uncrewed launch tests by late 2019, after which initial uncrewed flights to Mars in 2022, and finally crewed flight by 2024, reported The Verge.