SpaceX Starship prototype takes 1st free-flying test hop
Watch as LightSail 2 deploys its boxing ring-sized sail and feast your eyes on beautiful photos of Earth it has snapped while in orbit. The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 is the first spacecraft to be solely propelled by sunlight.
SpaceX's prototype rocket for a planned Starship vehicle has flown untethered for the first time.
Called Starhopper, the rocket made its first free-flying test hop at SpaceX's Boca Chica proving ground in South Texas late Thursday (July 25), one day after a glitch forced it to abort an earlier attempt. Starhopper ignited its single Raptor engine just before midnight, apparently firing long enough to meet the test's main objective, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk had said would be a straight hop 65 feet (20 meters) up and down.
"Starhopper test flight successful," Musk wrote on Twitter after the test. "Water towers *can* fly haha!!" (Starhopper is a large, squat cylinder on three legs wrapped in stainless steel, giving it a "water tower" look.)
SpaceX's Starhopper test vehicle, shown here during an attempted test hop on July 24, 2019, successfully made its first untethered test hop in Boca Chica, South Texas, late on July 25, 2019.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
Starhopper is a testbed vehicle designed to test out vital technologies for SpaceX's planned Starship and Super Heavy spacecraft, a planned fully reusable launch system capable of launching more payload than NASA's mighty Saturn V moon rocket. Starship is designed to carry up to 100 people at a time, and will be SpaceX's go-to spacecraft for eventual trips to the moon and Mars, Musk has said. It could even be used for point-to-point travel around Earth, he's added.
During Thursday night's test, Starhopper briefly lit up its Boca Chica proving ground, only to be quickly obscured by its exhaust plume as it rose up and landed within a minute. A video of the hop was streamed live on the Everyday Astronaut YouTube channel. Flames from the test hop ignited a fire near Starhopper that continued to burn well after the test itself, according to the video.
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