SpaceX hopes to ‘hope’ for another Starship prototype this weekend

If you missed it for the first time, there may be another chance in the next few days to take an early version of Elon Musk’s Mars rocket for a very short flight.

SpaceX has been working on them Boca Chica, texas, side to develop Starship, their next-generation spacecraft designed to eventually take humans to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Earlier this month a single engine Starship prototype with the label SN5 successfully made its first “hop, “which was a short flight of nearly 500 feet in height, followed by a controlled landing not far from the launch pad.

We saw the same feat performed by a smaller prototype dubbed Starhopper in 2019, but the far larger SN series is designed to be capable of orbital flight. It’s not clear when we’ll probably see that, but Musk has said he plans to do a series of hops to work on higher altitude flights.

We will do several short hops to smooth the launch process, and then go to high altitude with body flaps

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2020

Cameron County, Texas, where the development site is located, has issued an all-day road closure for this Friday, with backup dates on Saturday and Sunday, suggesting that SpaceX is hoping to snag SN6, its next prototype, this weekend.

Of course we have issued these locks earlier and then canceled, and there is some turbulent weather nearby. However, fingers crossed. Anything that looks like progress is a welcome spread these days.