The SpaceX Starship is shaping up well, ahead of planned “hop tests” set to start next year. The firm’s mega-ship is intended for a number of upcoming ambitious missions, like a manned trip to Mars and an orbit around the moon. New images posted on Thursday show the company is making big progress to get its Starship ready to take flight.
Following a brief ‘hop’ (via crane) off of a concrete build stand, the aft section of SpaceX’s first full-scale Starship hopper (Starhopper?) revealed that SpaceX technicians have already installed what appear to be three real Raptor engines, presumably the first time the propulsion system has ever been mounted to something that might eventually fly.
The images show preparations underway at the Boca Chica testing facility in Texas, where the company is expected to make its latest rocket fly a few hundred kilometers to demonstrate its readiness.
There previously was a wall covering the base of the SpaceX Starship Hopper. The wall has been removed to reveal three Raptor engines.
The Starhopper could be shorter than the final Starship. The Starship will need to be connected to a main booster section for the final Super Heavy Starship. For a number of reasons, there is a strong chance that these Raptors are actually just boilerplate placeholders standing in as structural guides for the real deal some months down the line. On the other hand, there are also a number of reasons to assume that these apparent engines are indeed real Raptors.
This is not the full-size rocket, unveiled at the International Aeronautical Congress in September 2017 with a size of 348 feet and mass of 9.7 million pounds, figures that far eclipse the current Falcon 9 that stands 230 feet tall with a mass of 1.2 million pounds. The Boca Chica rocket has the same full body diameter of the final starship at 30 feet, but doesn’t make the full height.
SpaceX plans a rapid timetable for the Starship, with Musk claiming there’s a 60 percent or more chance the rocket will reach orbit in 2020. This paves the way for Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to complete his voyage around the moon with six to eight artists in 2023, followed by a manned mission to Mars using two Starships in 2024. The rocket’s liquid methane and oxygen propellant make refueling from Mars possible.
Musk plans to provide a “detailed explanation” of his most recent design changes to the Starship as early as March or April, which Musk previously said would come after the first hop tests.
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