Musk: SpaceX Starship Prototype Could Fly ‘Soon’
SpaceX has a good thing going with the Falcon 9. It has almost perfected landings, allowing it to reuse the boosters, and NASA has certified the Falcon 9 to carry its most important cargo and even astronauts. The company is already looking toward its next launch platform, though. After blowing up a few Starship prototypes, the latest SN5 test vehicle just completed a full-duration static fire. CEO Elon Musk says that sets the stage for a “hop” in the near future.
The Starship, previously known as the BFR, is SpaceX’s upcoming all-purpose rocket. With the Super Heavy launch platform, Starship will be a heavy-lift system capable of sending large payloads into the outer solar system.
Last year, we watched as flew the first rocket with a Raptor engine, the so-called “Starhopper.” It was essentially a stub of the eventual Starship capable of lifting off with a single engine, hovering 150 meters in the air, and then landing. The goal is to make the Starship fully reusable like the Falcon 9. Musk has claimed that a Starship launch might cost as little as $2 million once it’s in full production, which is significantly less than other rockets. The ESA’s Ariane 5 costs $165 million per launch, and the Atlas V is $110 million.
A rendering of what the Starship could look like in space.
The SN5 prototype is the latest version of the rocket, but it’s not a final configuration — you can think of it as the mid-point between the Starhopper and a real Starship. Assuming tragedy does not befall this rocket, it could complete the proposed 150-meter flight in the next week or two. Even if something does go wrong and the SN5 is lost, SpaceX has two more prototypes in production — the SN6 and SN8. The SN7 was a small-scale test tank that the company discarded after it sprung a leak during testing in June 2020.
Starship SN5 just completed full duration static fire. 150m hop soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
SpaceX also hopes the SN5 will be the first version of the Starship to complete a high-altitude test flight to around 12 miles (20 kilometers). The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will continue handling all of SpaceX’s launch operations for the time being, but Starship development is progressing at a surprising pace.
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