What's new since last week's hop?
Starlink 9 launched on Thursday. I was at the beach this weekend hoping to catch a glimpse of the booster but sadly it wasn't back in port yet. I did however see the two fairing catching ships in port no doubt trying to hide their shame at not catching any fairings.
Back in Boca Chica, SN5 has been moved back to the hanger for inspection and SN6 has been rolled out to the pad.
You can see the thrust puck ram sticking out through the center of the test stand. So SN6 will go through the same steps as SN5 before it hops - to what altitude, we don't know.
Elon did give us a tweet to let us know what to expect in the near future.
SN6 will do a few hops for them to get practice at quick turnarounds.
SN7.1 is a test tank of the new steel alloy 304L. That will be tested to failure. woot woot!
SN8 (which is mostly built) will get a fairing, nose cone and fins and will do the high altitude test (20km?). SN8 will be the next big deal milestone, hopefully next month. SN8 will be 30% taller and look like a rocket. Now picture that sitting atop an even bigger rocket (Super Heavy). We hope to see that by the end of the year.