SpaceX’s Mars rocket prototype ‘Starhopper’ rattles nearby residents in successful Texas flight test
- The prototype vehicle, resembling a chrome water tower with three landing legs, completed a seemingly successful test of SpaceX’s Raptor engine
SpaceX test-launched an early prototype of the company’s Mars rocket on Tuesday, unnerving residents near the Texas site and clearing another key hurdle in billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s interplanetary ambitions.
After the launch, Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, congratulated engineers from SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies, and posted a photo of Starhopper touching down on its landing pad with billowing clouds of dust and sand rising from the ground.
“One day Starship will land on the rusty sands of Mars,” Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, tweeted.
The prototype, dubbed Starhopper, slowly rose about 500 feet (152m) off its launch pad in Brownsville, Texas, and propelled itself some 650 feet (198m) eastward onto an adjacent landing platform, completing a seemingly successful low-altitude test of SpaceX’s next-generation Raptor engine.
The Raptor is designed to power Musk’s forthcoming heavy-lift Starship rocket, a reusable two-stage booster taller than the Statue of Liberty that is expected to play a central role in Musk’s interplanetary space travel objectives, including missions to Mars.
The prototype “hopper” vehicle, resembling a chrome water tower with three landing legs, was originally slated for its test lift-off on Monday. But a “rather embarrassing” wiring issue with the single Raptor engine halted the countdown less than a second before ignition, Musk said on Twitter.