SpaceX Carbon-Fiber Fuel Tank

The tank is 12 meters (~39 feet) wide, the largest such vessel ever produced. According to Space.com, SpaceX tested the tank by taking it out to sea to see how it performs under pressure. The tank has to withstand incredible pressures and stresses at blisteringly cold temperatures — otherwise, it might leak or even explode. "This is really the hardest part of the spaceship," Musk said at the September IAC talk. "The other pieces ... we have a pretty good handle on, but this was the trickiest one. So we wanted to tackle it first." Carbon-fiber fuel tanks for spacecraft aren't a new concept, as Boeing and NASA began work on a huge one 2014, but we've never seen one this enormous at roughly ...View all