Video: SpaceX Starship Conducts 150-meter Hop in Texas
Video Caption: SpaceX successfully performed a 150-meter hop test with the Starship SN5 prototype in Boca Chica, Texas. The hop was the first flight of a full-scale Starship tank section.
16 responses to “Video: SpaceX Starship Conducts 150-meter Hop in Texas”
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That was pretty spectacular. Watching that control system work with one engine off center and keeping that moment of inertial under control was very very impressive. I had a smile a mile wide watching that.
Congratulations! Great flight!
Now SN8 with the three-pack and aero surfaces. That’s going to be a nail biter.
https://twitter.com/elonmus…
Bloody freaking insane.
I’m beginning to think SpaceX could tie an engine to a locomotive and not only fly it but land it on the tracks.
And then do it again
Not likely a nail biter.
Should be straight forward from here on
That is the most ridiculous yet inspirational thing I’ve ever seen. A giant flying beer can that deployed those stubby little legs and touched down gently LOL…
Can’t wait to see how SN8 with the nose cone and control surfaces will look like!
But first, Elon did say they will make quite a few more low altitude hops with the giant beer can. 😀 (hops, beer, LOL)
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1290826885375696899I believe…
I believe a beer-can can fly!
Seeing is believing.
Looks like a very busy August shaping up for SpaceX pretty much everywhere except Vandy. Fun times.
congratulations to SpaceX…this is even a bigger deal then the crew flight; which was a big deal
this is large
Bigger deal than the crewed Dragon 2 flight? Debatable. Both are necessary steps towards any sort of crewed Starship flight (this includes a future NASA crew landing a lunar Starship).
this debate can end rather quickly because it is almost useless. but in my mind crew dragon showed what has been done before can be done again, albeit cheaper…while the technological advances such as evidenced here are impressive even to a skeptic like me 🙂
Meh. How is this any different than the falcon 9? The answer is, that it is not.
Basically, this is evolution of F9, not really revolution.
This is an upper stage…..
The tech we’re seeing with the full flow staged combustion Raptor is groundbreaking, for the US. The Russians had developed a full flow staged combustion engine, but never flew it. They were the masters of liquid fueled rocket engine tech and were decades ahead of any other country on the planet. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russians just chose to rest on their laurels rather than develop new launch vehicles. They dabbled in reuse, especially as the Soviet Union, but they never actually flew and reused anything.
And that brings us to the truly groundbreaking bit when it comes to launch vehicles. The potential here is that SpaceX might actually succeed in developing the world’s first fully reusable two stage to orbit launch system which includes an actual spacecraft that is integrated into the fully reusable second stage. That’s one of the the holy grails of spaceflight and it appears to be just within our reach.
That said, we’re not there yet. This is going to take a lot more development and iteration than Falcon 9 ever did.