Elon Musk and SpaceX took their hottest step towards Mars and the stated aim of creating humanity a multi-planetary species … by taking pictures a giant metal thermos into the Texas sky Tuesday evening. 

The corporation carried out an virtually 500-foot (150 meter) “hop” of its SN5 Starship prototype at its Boca Chica improvement facility at 5 p.m. PT. 

The almost 9-tale-tall take a look at craft ignited its solitary Raptor motor and slowly and gradually rose into the air prior to then carefully returning to the ground and landing upright not considerably from the place it took off.

For a second soon after the motor very first ignited, it seemed as if SN5 was battling to get airborne, but then it rose earlier mentioned its personal smoke, hovered and came in for a tender landing. It traveled just a small portion of the additional than 35 million miles Musk hopes the remaining Starship will traverse to consider humans to Mars. 

The very long-awaited small-altitude check flight arrives just after a handful of former prototypes unsuccessful with out ever leaving the floor, typically through pressurization tests. 

SN5 is designed to be able to accomplish an orbital flight, but before pushing towards place, it initial experienced to comprehensive this comparatively tiny hop.

The around 98-foot-tall (30 meter) auto is a stripped-down model of what the ultimate Starship spacecraft will glimpse like, without the nose cone or fins. It’s 30 feet (9 meters) wide and it really is essentially a gas tank and a single Raptor motor topped with a pounds that simulates a payload. The ensuing form is some thing like a thermos a lot of will realize.

Musk tweeted this footage of the start late Tuesday:

It really is been a large August for SpaceX presently, with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft effectively returning NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley from the International Area Station and splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico about the weekend. 

“Mars is wanting serious,” Musk tweeted after the hop.

Crazy to assume that interplanetary journey could possibly get started with this brief and strange-on the lookout flight. Can’t hold out to see the following major move on this lengthy journey.