spaceX, elon musk’s space exploration company, completed a small hop into the future of space travel by launching the starship rocket prototype into a 500-foot (150-meter) test. completed in south texas on tuesday august 4th, 2020, the massive reusable vehicle, which has been designed to fly people to space, took off from the launching stand and then made a controlled descent.

 

‘mars is looking real,’ musk tweeted after the test flight. ‘progress is accelerating.’

 

 

 

following the achievements of falcon 9 and falcon heavy, spaceX has been working on a next generation of fully reusable launch vehicles, capable of carrying humans to mars and other destinations in the solar system. called starship, this vehicle has been envisioned to service the earth orbit, moon, mars and beyond, and has the ability of carrying in excess of 100 metric tonnes to earth orbit.

 

the static fire test conducted saw the starship SN5 take a 150-meter hop using its single raptor engine. the testing, which began on july 30th and concluded four days later, resulted in the first full-scale prototype to perform a successful flight test. the prototype is still in a very early stage as, for example, the original design is supposed to host six raptor engines instead of one, like the one that took the flight.

 

however, the small flight is no small feat, and it marks a big turning point for spaceX, which hadn’t had much success with the starship in the past year. the event, which was created to test out a controlled testing and landing, proved that the company is on the right track.