SpaceX’s Starhopper Rocket Prototype Aborts 1st Untethered Hop Attempt

SpaceX fired up its Starhopper test vehicle for its biggest hop yet Wednesday (July 24), but the rocket aborted the flight just seconds into the attempt. 

Starhopper, a prototype for SpaceX’s Starship program, ignited its Raptor engine for about 3 seconds at the company’s Boca Chica test site in South Texas, but the vehicle failed to lift off. Instead of hopping up about 65 feet (20 meters), the rocket belched flame and smoke, then shut down. 

“It appears as though we have had an abort on today’s test,” SpaceX certification engineer Kate Tice said during a 20-minute live webcast of the Starhopper test. “As you can see there, the vehicle did not lift off today.”

SpaceX’s Starhopper has performed a tethered test hop in April as well as ground tests of the rocket’s main Raptor engine. Today’s test flight was designed to be the first untethered flight for Starhopper, with its Raptor engine firing at 80% capacity, Tice said. 

“This is a development program,” Tice said. “Today was a test flight designed to test the boundaries of the vehicle.”

More details will be added as they are available. 

You can see SpaceX’s full video of the Starhopper test hop below. 

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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