The brief flight took place at 6:57 p.m. local time (23:57 GMT) on Tuesday. The test vehicle made a short 150 meter (492 feet) hop from the Space X’s site near the South Texas village of Boca Chica.
It comes after previous prototypes, except for the first one (Starhopper), failed during testing. In November 2019, the Starship Mk1 prototype was damaged during a cryogenic pressure test. In February 2020, the Starship SN1 prototype exploded during a liquid nitrogen pressure test.
In April, the Starship SN3 prototype was destroyed during a pressure test. Back then, Musk said that it might have been a test configuration mistake. In another test a month later, the SN4 went up in flames due to what appears to have been a gas leak.
