For the first time, a Starship prototype roars to life with three engines - Ars Technica

SpaceX engineers achieved another milestone early Tuesday morning when the company's Starship vehicle roared to life for the first time with multiple Raptor engines.

At 3:13am local time in South Texas, a Starship prototype dubbed SN8, or Serial Number 8, fired three Raptor engines for several seconds during a static fire test.

Although there was no immediate confirmation from the company, the test at the company's Boca Chica launch site appeared to be successful.

Even as one team prepared to ignite the rocket during the wee hours on Tuesday—which tested its plumbing to handle chilled liquid oxygen and methane fuels, and the recent installation of three Raptor engines—another team assembled the nose cone that will go on top of SN8 in preparation for its flight.

SpaceX built the core of SN8 this fall, and moved it from its factory-beneath-tents in South Texas to the nearby launch site in early October.

In May, the company successfully tested a full-scale tank section of its Starship vehicle (SN4) for the first time with a single Raptor engine.

These flying contraptions looked something like flying spray paint cans as they rose above the scrubby Texas coastal plain, but they provided valuable experience to the company's engineers, who learned to control the Raptor engine in flight and pushed the pressure limits on its fuel tanks.

This will also include a large rocket, named Super Heavy, that will propel Starship toward orbit.

At a virtual meeting of the Mars Society on Friday, the company's founder and chief engineer, Elon Musk, said he was "80 to 90 percent confident" the company would reach orbit with Starship in 2021.