After Starship Test Fire, Elon Musk Expects 150-meter Hop 'Soon' Elon Musk tweeted about the latest SpaceX vehicle.
This story originally appeared on Engadget
Elon Musk's hopes for Starship to reach orbit before this spring didn't quite pan out, but a recent test firing has the SpaceX CEO expecting to see the company's new vehicle take flight shortly. On Thursday he tweeted that its new SN5 build completed a full duration static fire, and said a 150m test hop will happen "soon." Of course, ten days ago he said there would be a flight attempt within a week, but they are making progress.
Starship SN5 just completed full duration static fire. 150m hop soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2020
Last August we saw SpaceX's Starhopper test vehicle complete a 150m Raptor-powered "bounce" and sooner or later the actual Starship will make a similar test flight. The company has continued to iterate on its design and pressure test prototypes — we remember SN4's end — as it moves closer to actual flight. If there's any information on a webcast of the event, we'll let you know. Even with the Crew Dragon scheduled for a return this weekend, SpaceX's priority is the Starship project.
