SpaceX One Step Closer to Starship with Starhopper’s Hop – Updated with Video

SpaceX’s Starhopper test vehicle executed its planned “hop” today at the company’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas.  An earlier test was just 20 meters, but today it was headed for an altitude of 150 meters. The company has not issued an official statement on what was achieved, but that looked about right on the livestream.  The test is a step, however small, towards the Starship vehicle that SpaceX is developing to send people to the Moon and beyond.  UPDATED WITH SPACEX VIDEO.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk is developing Starship and its Super Heavy rocket (formerly Big Falcon Rocket — BFR) to take people and cargo to Earth orbit, to the Moon and to Mars.  Starship is both the spacecraft for the crew and/or cargo and the second stage of Super Heavy.

Starship will have seven Raptor engines.  Super Heavy will have 31.

Starhopper uses just one of the liquid oxygen/liquid methane powered engines.

The first 20-meter test was on July 25.  This second test took a little longer to win FAA approval than planned, and that approval was only to 150 meters altitude instead of the 200 meters the company sought. In a tweet during the approval process, Musk said the FAA wanted additional hazard analyses.  The experimental permit was issued on August 23.  The test was scheduled for yesterday and it counted down to zero, but something went awry with the igniters and the vehicle did not lift off.

Igniters need to be inspected. We will try again tomorrow same time.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2019

Indeed, today was the day.  The entire flight lasted 57 seconds.

On August 28, SpaceX tweeted the video of the entire test (be sure to open full screen and turn up your speakers), which is also on its YouTube Channel.   Some dub it a “flying water tower,” but Musk jokingly refers to it as “R2D2’s Dad” after the Star Wars droid.

Starhopper flight test drone footage pic.twitter.com/ilvALgrpCo

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 28, 2019

Musk said this will be the last test for the 9-meter diameter Starhopper. Ever focused on reusability, SpaceX will use the vehicle as an engine test stand.

Yes, last flight for Hopper. If all goes well, it will become a vertical test stand for Raptor.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2019

The next test vehicle will be Starship Mark 1 (Mk 1), with three Raptor engines.

Musk tweeted early this month that he would provide an update on the Starship program on August 24, but with the delay in this Starhopper test, decided to postpone it until mid-September.

Will probably make sense to do this when Starship Mk 1 has 3 Raptors, moving body fins & landing gear installed, which is hopefully mid September

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2019

Musk has his first Starship customer already, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.  That flight around the Moon is tentatively planned for 2023.  It is not intended to land.