SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Friday said that the company is working on solving the refueling of its two-stage launch vehicle Starship in space by the end of next year and advancing technologies that would eventually allow for people on Mars.

SpaceX 執行長 Elon Musk 週五表示，該公司正在致力於在明年年底前解決其兩級運載火箭 Starship 在太空中的加油問題，並推進最終允許人類登陸火星的技術。

What Happened: “Full & rapid reusability of booster & ship and orbital refilling of ship are the 2 fundamental technologies we aim to solve by the end of next year,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter while adding that these technologies are essential to enabling life on another planet besides Earth.

發生了什麼：「助推器和船舶的完全快速可重複使用以及船舶的軌道再填充是我們計劃在明年年底之前解決的兩項基本技術，」馬斯克在X（前Twitter）上寫道，同時補充說這些技術對於實現這一目標至關重要除了地球之外的另一個星球上有生命。

Musk has often talked about making life multi-planetary by building a self-sustaining city on Mars and taking humans there via Starship. The reusability of the vehicle is key to bringing down the costs of this dream.

馬斯克經常談論透過在火星上建造一座自給自足的城市並透過星際飛船將人類帶到那裡來實現多行星生命。車輛的可重複使用性是降低這項夢想成本的關鍵。

Orbital refilling, meanwhile, is a process aimed at refueling the ship in space with tanker versions of the starship from Earth. While the process is not easy, it is still a better alternative to docking with the Space Station, Musk said.

同時，軌道加油是一個旨在用來自地球的加油機版本的星際飛船在太空中為飛船加油的過程。馬斯克表示，雖然這個過程並不容易，但它仍然是比與太空站對接更好的選擇。

“It's just docking with ourselves,” Musk wrote. “Not trivial, but certainly easier than docking with the Space Station, which is far more complex.”

「這只是與我們自己對接，」馬斯克寫道。 “這並不簡單，但肯定比與空間站對接要容易得多，後者要復雜得多。”

The Starship is composed of two stages- the super heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. A booster catch attempt is highly likely this year, Musk said in another post. Earlier this month, in a talk at Starbase, Musk said that the company will attempt to land the booster on a virtual tower during the upcoming flight test. Once that is achieved, the company will attempt to land it on a physical launch tower in a subsequent flight. The CEO pegged the chances of catching the booster with the mechanical arms on the launch tower at 80-90% this year.

星艦由兩級組成－超重型助推器和星艦飛船。馬斯克在另一篇文章中表示，今年極有可能進行助推器捕獲嘗試。本月早些時候，馬斯克在 Starbase 的演講中表示，該公司將在即將進行的飛行測試中嘗試將助推器降落在虛擬塔上。一旦實現這一目標，該公司將嘗試在後續飛行中將其降落在實體發射塔上。這位執行長預計，今年用發射塔上的機械手臂抓住助推器的機會為 80-90%。

As for the starship spacecraft, the company does not intend to bring it back to the launch site until it can land a specific design twice at a particular point in the ocean, Musk said.

馬斯克表示，至於星艦飛船，該公司不打算將其帶回發射場，直到它能夠在海洋中的特定地點兩次著陸特定設計。

Why It Matters: Starship is touted as the world's most powerful launch vehicle with its 121-meter tall frame weighing approximately 5000 tonnes.

重要性：Starship 被譽為世界上最強大的運載火箭，其框架高 121 米，重約 5,000 噸。

During Starship’s latest and third flight test on March 14, the spacecraft lost contact and broke down while re-entering the planet's atmosphere instead of splashing down as planned in the Indian Ocean. The entirety of the last flight lasted about an hour.

在 3 月 14 日 Starship 進行的最新一次也是第三次飛行測試中，飛船在重新進入行星大氣層時失去了聯繫並發生故障，而不是按計劃在印度洋濺落。最後一次飛行整個過程持續了大約一個小時。

SpaceX launched the Starship twice last year — the first time in April and then in November. The next test flight of Starship is expected in May and the company aims to have the ship re-enter Earth’s atmosphere with all its systems functioning despite the extreme heat.

SpaceX 去年兩次發射了 Starship——第一次是在 4 月，第二次是在 11 月。星際飛船的下一次試飛預計在五月進行，該公司的目標是讓太空船重新進入地球大氣層，並且在極端炎熱的情況下其所有系統都能正常運作。

NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon. The agency expects to land two astronauts on the Moon no earlier than September 2026 in the Artemis III mission with a lunar lander variant of the Starship.

美國太空總署目前正依靠星際飛船的成功將人類送回月球。該機構預計將在 2026 年 9 月之前利用星際飛船的月球著陸器變體在阿耳忒彌斯 III 任務中將兩名太空人送上月球。

The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.

上一次載人登月任務發生在 1972 年的阿波羅 17 號任務中。