SpaceX teams working on Starship SN5 'will attempt to fly later this week'

Featured Image Source: SpaceX [digital depiction]

Elon Musk founded SpaceX to transform humans into a multiplanet species –“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about,” he says, “It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” He hires amazing teams at SpaceX to make this future a reality. SpaceX aims to develop a gigantic stainless-steel Starship that will be capable of transporting one hundred passengers to the moon and Mars. The company is working on an ambitious timeline to make this vehicle available in our lifetime. The first private passenger, a Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, booked a voyage around the moon aboard Starship, scheduled to take place in less than four years by 2023. Musk says he is thankful Maezawa is funding Starship's development. The payment Maezawa made for the space tour was significant enough that it will “have a material effect on paying for cost and development of Starship.” –  "He's paying a lot of money that would help with the ship and its booster. [...] He's ultimately paying for the average citizen to travel to other planets,” Musk told reporters last year.

Starship is under development at the company’s South Texas facility located in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville, TX. Teams are rapidly building multiple Starship prototypes that will be tested this year. Their goal is to develop a spacecraft that will be capable of enduring high stresses of spaceflight as well as atmospheric reentry. Currently, engineers are working on a prototype referred to as Starship SN5, [Serial Number 5] which is awaiting its first series of tests at the launch pad.

SN5 prep on LaunchPad last night - #BocaChicaToMars, @elonmusk, @cnunezimages, #iCANimagine LLC, @SpaceIntellige3, #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/O2dhBI7Stc

— cnunezimages (@cnunezimages) July 21, 2020

Today, July 21, Musk shared that teams are preparing SN5 for a debut flight – “Will attempt to fly later this week,” he wrote via Twitter. Starship SN5 is expected to conduct a low-altitude test flight. The SN5 vehicle will not have the fins nor nosecone attached during the test; It will be the first time SpaceX attempts to fly a larger-scale Starship prototype. Its single Raptor engine will be ignited to propel the stainless-steel cylinder structure about 150-meters above Boca Chica beach. Engineers will also attempt to land SN5 vertically on a nearby landing pad. According to Boca Chica’s Cameron County road closures, SpaceX may conduct a static-fire test of SN5’s Raptor engine any day from Wednesday, July 22, through Friday, July 24 at 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time (local). A static-firing involves the brief ignition of the Raptor engine as the stainless-steel vehicle is attached to the test stand. If this test goes well, then SpaceX can finally fly a Starship prototype 150-meters.

Will attempt to fly later this week

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2020

SpaceX teams at the assembly facility in Boca Chica are also manufacturing multiple Starships, it looks like a scene from a science fiction movie, many stainless-steel nose cones and test vehicles lined up side to side (pictured below). These shiny prototypes are made of 301 and 304L stainless-steel. One of the new vehicles that are under assembly, referred to as Starship SN8, features a new kind of stainless-steel alloy – “We’re rapidly changing alloy constituents & forming methods, so traditional names like 304L will become more of an approximation,” Musk revealed today. He had previously said that SpaceX will mix its own stainless-steel alloy to increase the spacecraft's strength factor. 

The life of a Starship nosecone.

"Take a ticket and line up at the Windbreak to receive your own five ring barrel section!"

Mary (@BocaChicaGal) photo.https://t.co/OQfSDkteoJ pic.twitter.com/yISlpe5mEO

— Chris B - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) July 21, 2020