SpaceX’s Starhopper test rocket takes one giant leap, marking new step toward Mars

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/spacex-starhopper-test-rocket-takes-013411768.html

SpaceX’s Starhopper fires its methane-fueled Raptor engine during a test hop. (Elon Musk via Twitter)

A prototype rocket that looks more like a water tower took a 500-foot-high hop today in Texas, blazing a methane-fueled trail for a spaceship that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk plans to send to the moon and Mars within a few years.

SpaceX’s Starhopper served as a test vehicle for Musk’s Starship launch system – which would consist of a Super Heavy booster with 35 next-generation Raptor engines, plus a Starship craft with six Raptors.

Starship could be used to loft people, cargo or fuel out of Earth orbit and onward to deep space. “One day Starship will land on the rusty sands of Mars,” Musk wrote in a tweet after today’s test.

If Musk’s vision comes to fruition on his current timetable, Starship’s first Mars landing could happen in the mid-2020s. But he had a less ambitious goal for the Starhopper rocket that was tested today.

Starhopper’s mission was to gauge the oomph of a single methane-fueled Raptor engine as it sent a squat, 30-foot-wide tank structure to a height of 500 feet (150 meters) and brought it back down to a landing pad at SpaceX’s launch facility near Boca Chica in South Texas.

SpaceX faced a couple of delays in planning today’s hop: First, Musk had to wait to win clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to go to the required altitude. Then, during Monday’s first launch attempt, a glitch involving the Raptor engine’s ignition system forced a scrub at literally the last second. No such snags cropped up today.

Today’s hop followed up on a 60-foot-high (18-meter-high) hop that Starhopper took a month ago. That trial launch took place at night, and the sight was obscured by clouds of rocket exhaust. This one, in contrast, occurred in full daylight just after 6 p.m. CT (4 p.m. PT) and featured the Starhopper’s majestic rise high above the pad.

“Congrats SpaceX team!!” Musk tweeted afterward.

So what’s next? Going forward, this Starhopper is meant to serve as a vertical test stand for Raptor engines. SpaceX teams at Boca Chica and at Cape Canaveral in Florida are already working on two next-step Starship prototypes that will each make use of three Raptors.

Those rocket ships could hop as high as 12 miles (20 kilometers)

 

[Bilal9]

Bravo to the entire SpaceX team.