While answering questions on Twitter, Elon Musk shared some information about the test flight schedule for his Starship, Texas and Florida. The CEO of SpaceX has announced suborbital flights in two to three months, then orbital flights within four to six months for its prototypes.
A schedule that seems tight after the accident - not serious - occurred during a series of engine tests on the Starship Hopper.
Starship Texas and Florida will fly in two to three months
Earlier this year, Elon Musk unveiled the first photo of his StarHopperprototype on Twitter. Since then, everything seems to be going very fast, thanks to SpaceX's competition policy. Indeed, the company is developing two prototypes of Starship spacecraft in parallel, in Texas and Florida, independently of one another.
The goal of this organization is to stimulate a sense of competition internally to achieve combined progress that would be impossible to achieve with a single team. This technique seems to be working since SpaceX's CEO announced that Starship's prototypes would fly within two to three months, during tests of suborbital flights.
Orbital flight tests in four to six months
The first flights of Starship ships will be suborbital, but the schedule for orbital flights is already ready. Indeed, these will take place two to three months later, in four to six months only. Elon Musk also shared some details about the launches. Thus, a dedicated launching structure is currently under construction on another site, as for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
This optimism - or confidence - displayed by the CEO of SpaceX does not erase the disappointment of last week, while the StarHopper prototype missed its objective of the operation. However, the prototype has not suffered any significant damage. Elon Musk also came back on this point and said that this accident was the result of a "post-test fuel leak".
Texas and Florida Starship prototypes (not Hopper) fly in 2 to 3 months— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2019
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