---
title: "SpaceX’s Starship Hopper Completes First Tethered “Hop”"
description: "SpaceX's Starship Hopper successfully completed a tethered hop, putting the company's in-development Starship one step closer to liftoff."
date: "2019-04-04"
modified: "2019-04-04"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tests-starship-hopper-engine"
categories:
  - "Space"
  - "SpaceX"
  - "Starship"
tags:
  - "elon musk"
  - "SpaceX"
  - "Starship"
  - "starship hopper"
  - "the digest"
---

# SpaceX’s Starship Hopper Completes First Tethered “Hop”

![SpaceX's Starship Hopper successfully completed a tethered hop, putting the company's in-development Starship one step closer to liftoff.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/spacex-tests-starship-hopper-engine.png>)
*\<em\>Image: SpaceX via Flickr\</em\>*

## Hop Along

SpaceX's Starship got one tiny hop closer to launch on Wednesday.

At approximately 8:56 p.m. EDT, Elon Musk's space company test fired the engine on its Starship Hopper at its Boca Chica, Texas, facility. The craft was tethered during the approximately one-minute-long test, ensuring that its "hop" didn't take it too far from the ground.

Soon after, Musk tweeted that the mission was a success.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1113613409767964673

## Seeing Stars

The Starship Hopper — or "Starhopper," in Musk's lingo — is a prototype for Starship, an in-development craft SpaceX hopes to use to send people to the [Moon](<https://futurism.com/elon-musk-moon-base-spacex>), [Mars](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-round-trip-mars>), and even just on [quick jaunts](<https://futurism.com/space-travel-disrupt-airlines>) to the other side of the Earth.

While this Starhopper boasts just one engine, the final Starship is expected to [have 31](<https://www.inverse.com/article/53191-spacex-starship-raptor-engine-breaks-record>).

**READ MORE:** [SpaceX Just Completed Its First Starship Hopper Firing: 'All Systems Green'](<https://www.inverse.com/article/54596-spacex-just-fired-starship-hopper>) \[*Inverse*\]

**More on Starship:** *[Elon Musk: SpaceX Hopes to Launch Starship “Test Hopper” This Week](<https://futurism.com/elon-musk-spacex-test-hoppper-starship>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)