Dear Friends & Neighbors,

Super heavy-lift launch vehicles ordered by height. Country of origin, height in meters and payload capacity to Low Earth Orbit in tonnes are listed in the bottom (Attribution: Thorenn,
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en, Presented at: WindermereSun.com)

An off-centered Raptor engine mounted on SN4 via Elon Musk. SN5’s Raptor is mounted in the same fashion.(Attribution: SpaceX/NASA, Presented at: WindermereSun.com)

An artist’s concept of Starship launch vehicle in flight, 2019, PD (Presented at: WindermereSun.com)

(Please click on red links & note magenta)

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SpaceX was set for a second attempt at a 150-meter hop test with the Starship SN5 prototype in Boca Chica, Texas on Tuesday, August 4, 2020, earlier today. The hop would be the first flight of a full-scale Starship tank section. If the hop were successful, it would have cleared the way for SpaceX to attempt higher altitude flights with Starship prototypes. 

Wow!  Soon after the first version of this post was written, Gene and Rachel from Spadre [@SouthPadreIsle] are right at the edge of the exclusion zone with one of the slow motion cameras to catch SpaceX performed a test flight of Starship SN-5! In the video “Watch SpaceX ACTUALLY hop Starship SN-5 150m!!!” below:

Starship SN5’s first hop attempt on Monday, August 3, 2020, was ended before it began. A turbopump spin start valve failed to open, triggering an abort and ending the test prematurely. In the video “ABORT: Starship SN5 150-Meter Hop Aborted in Boca Chica, Texas“, below:

Starship SN5, equipped with a single Raptor engine (SN27), will attempt a hop at SpaceX’s development and launch site at Boca Chica, Texas. The test article will rise to a maximum altitude of about 150 meters and translate a similar distance downrange to the landing pad. The flight should last approximately one minute and follow a trajectory very similar to Starhopper’s 150 meter hop in August of 2019. The Raptor engine is offset slightly from the vehicle’s vertical axis, so some unusual motion is to be expected as SN5 lifts off, reorients the engine beneath the vehicle’s center of mass, and lands. SN5 has six legs stowed inside the skirt which will be deployed in flight for landing. The exact launch time may not be known until just a few minutes before launch, and will be preceded by a local siren about 10 minutes ahead of time, in the video “SpaceX Starship SN5 150m Hop Test Flight Live [AUG 3 SCRUB]“, below:

The second attempt, in the video “SpaceX Starship SN5 150m Hop Test Flight Live [AUG 4 SCRUB]“, below:

SpaceX team conducted a static fire test of SN-5 on Thursday, July 30, 2020, in SpaceX south Texas facility, in the video “Starship SN5 – This Is Why The 150m Is So Important“, below:

In the video “Watch SpaceX static fire Starship SN-5!” below:

SpaceX Starship is Now Top Priority: Elon Musk Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship,’ Musk wrote on 6th June, Saturday in the email. In this video Engineering Today will discuss why Elon Musk Tells SpaceX to Focus On Mars-Bound Starship Spacecraft ‘Dramatically and Immediately’ Let’s get into details. In the video “SpaceX Starship is Now “Top Priority”: Elon Musk“, below:

So, may all SpaceX enthusiasts, be sure to send up all of your/our positive energy for a successful 150-meter hop test!

Behold, later in the day on Tuesday, August 4, 2020, there was a successful 150-meter hop test! Thank you all for having sent up any of your positive energy to make it happen!

For more about SpaceX Starship, please refer to the excerpt from wikipedia, in italics, below:

The SpaceX Starship is a fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle^[3] under development by SpaceX since 2012, as a self-funded private spaceflight project.^[10][11][12]

The second stage of the Starship “^{[13]:16:20–16:48}—is designed as a long-duration cargo and passenger-carrying spacecraft. It is expected to be initially used without any booster stage at all, as part of an extensive development program to get launch and landing working and iterate on a variety of design details, particularly with respect to the vehicle’s atmospheric reentry.^{[12][14][15][16]}

While the spacecraft will be tested on its own at suborbital altitudes, it will be used on orbital launches with an additional booster stage, the Super Heavy, where the spacecraft will serve as the second stage on a two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle.^[17]

Integrated system testing of a proof of concept for Starship began in March 2019, with the addition of a single Raptor rocket engine to a reduced-height prototype, nicknamed Starhopper—similar to Grasshopper, an equivalent prototype of the Falcon 9 reusable booster. Starhopper was used from April through August 2019 for static testing and low-altitude, low-velocity flight testing of vertical launches and landings^[18] in July and August. More prototype Starships are under construction^[19] and are expected to go through several iterations. All test articles have a 9-meter diameter (30 ft) stainless steel hull.

SpaceX is planning to launch commercial payloads using Starship no earlier than 2021.^[20] In April 2020, NASA selected a modified human rated Starship system as one of three lunar landing systems to receive funding for a 10-month long initial design phase for the Artemis program.^[21]

For more on SpaceX Starship, please click HERE.

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