SpaceX stacks the prototype of the Starship SN8 before the epic...

The latest from SpaceX Spaceship The prototype was stacked in preparation for an ambitious test flight in which the vehicle will be far taller than any of its predecessors.

SpaceX The staff installed the Starship SN8 (“Serial No. 8”) nose cone yesterday (October 22) at the company’s South Texas site near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica. The vehicle is now in its flight configuration and is ready for an unscrewed jump to a planned altitude of around 15 kilometers.

SN8 has already taken a big step towards this hop, igniting its three Raptor engines in one “Static fire” test earlier this week. The vehicle is likely to start a second static fire before it takes off, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk

SN8 Starship with flaps & nosecone should be done in about a week. Then static fire, checkouts, static fire, fly to 60,000 ft & back.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 12, 2020

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Starship is the giant next-generation vehicle SpaceX is building to take people and payloads to distant destinations like the Moon and Mars, launch satellites into orbit, and meet all of the company’s other spaceflight needs.

The 50-meter-high spaceship will launch from Earth on a giant rocket called the Super Heavy, which even in prototype form has not yet flown. Both elements of this space system will be fully reusable, Musk said. Super Heavy will return to Earth for vertical landings, and Starship will make multiple trips to and from the moon, Mars, or wherever it was sent. (The spaceship will be powerful enough to take off from the moon and Mars, but it will take the help of Super Heavy to get off the earth.)

SpaceX is iterating over a number of prototypes, three of which have already made brief test jumps, toward the final Starship design. The spacecraft SN5 and SN6, for example, flew about 150 m high in August and September of this year.

These two prototypes only had a Raptor engine and no nose cone. SN8 is a different animal overall because it goes so much higher; In addition to the nose cone and three raptors, SN8 sports body flaps ensure more stability in flight. (The full-fledged spacecraft will be powered by six raptors, and Super Heavy will have about 30 engines, Musk said.)

SpaceX aims to get the mature Starship model up and running relatively soon. Starship is in the running to land astronauts on the moon for NASA Artemis programand the agency wants the first of these crewed touchdowns to take place in 2024.

Mike Wall is the author of Out There (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for another life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.