This was the first successful flight test of a Starship prototype. Starship is SpaceX’s next-gen rocket system, with the intent being full reusability (their current Falcon 9 rocket only reuses the first stage, and takes more refurbishment than desired).
Although it’s hard to distinguish the prototype from a beer can, it’s about 30 feet in diameter and 100 feet tall. This is the full diameter but only about 1/4 the final height. It is just the propellant section for the upper stage–the box on top is just a chunk of steel to simulate the mass of the rest of the stage. And the first stage–dubbed Super Heavy–is not there at all (still in development).
SpaceX previously tested the “Starhopper” successfully (you can see it in the video–it’s the stubby, shiny, R2D2-looking thing just to the left of the Starship). However, that was basically just an engine test, since the vehicle itself didn’t resemble the final one at all. The test today, however, used very nearly the final production techniques that the real one will. It’s made from stacked rings of stainless steel. It’s cheap and effective construction but it had yet to be proven in flight.
You may notice that the whole flight was a bit cockeyed, which is intentional–the final vehicle will have a cluster of three engines around the centerline (and three more farther out), but this one only has a single engine in one of these positions. Hence, it has an off-center thrust and the vehicle tilts a bit to correct for that. The flight was thus a good test of their flight control systems.
There’s still lots more to do but this is an excellent step forward. If SpaceX succeeds here, it will lower the cost to space by a factor of 10x or even 100x. They need to achieve full and rapid reusability, and if they can pull it off, travel will cost only a few times that of the fuel, instead of the >100x like today.
