SpaceX attempting another Starship hop today
Capitalism in space: Engineers at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas are today preparing the sixth Starship prototype for its first 150 meter hop, the second hop of a Starship prototype overall.
The launch window is anytime between 8 am and 8 pm (Central). I have embedded the livesteam below the fold if you wish to watch. Based on previous attempts, they will try for a morning launch before noon, and if there are issues they will recycle and try again in the afternoon.
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Capitalism in space: Engineers at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas are today preparing the sixth Starship prototype for its first 150 meter hop, the second hop of a Starship prototype overall.
The launch window is anytime between 8 am and 8 pm (Central). I have embedded the livesteam below the fold if you wish to watch. Based on previous attempts, they will try for a morning launch before noon, and if there are issues they will recycle and try again in the afternoon.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Success!
That’s two different prototype doing a 150m hop almost perfectly (they still land a bit crooked). 20km jump next?
I believe the 20km hop is planned for SN8, so probably not soon. (For anyone not following closely, SN7 was a pressure test vehicle, and SN7.1 is being prepped for a pressure test with the new steel alloy. These are test-to-destruction tank-only tests, not launchable prototypes.)
I do expect SN5 to do another 150m hop before then. Elon said that he wanted to do more 150m hops to clean up the launch process, probably to minimize cleanup at the pad and also recycle faster for re-use. I think he said something about less than a day cycle time, but that might be a bit optimistic.
This hop looked very clean – no flying debris, no ground fires. Liftoff seemed slower than SN5, which might be a throttle test, and might not.
Correct me if I am wrong, but this is going to have to get good enough to hop. land, and then hop again, yes?
That must be the goal if one of the mission sets is to set down and return from the Moon and Mars.
Diane Wilson: There was a ground fire. See the image in my post reporting the flight.
sippin_bourbon,
You wrote: “i>Correct me if I am wrong, but this is going to have to get good enough to hop. land, and then hop again, yes? That must be the goal if one of the mission sets is to set down and return from the Moon and Mars.”
Yes, an eventual goal, but no, not an immediate goal. My expectation is that they will start working on double hops after they are comfortable that they have the first hop working well. Just as it is more important to get Starship able to land before Superheavy can loft it into orbit, it is more important to get Super Heavy launching before it becomes necessary to relaunch after a landing. Boca Chica could be very busy next year.