T minus 9 minutes (as of writing this): SpaceX YouTube feed of Starship Hop
Since this is carried on YouTube, we can infer that the launch of this Starship prototype is not information about election fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election. (Should we start saying that about all YouTube videos we talk about, as a way to poke fun at YT?)
https://www.youtu
From SpaceX YouTube description:
Starship | SN8 | High-Altitude Flight Test
As early as Wednesday, December 9, the SpaceX team will attempt a high-altitude suborbital flight test of Starship serial number 8 (SN8) from our site in Cameron County, Texas. The schedule is dynamic and likely to change, as is the case with all development testing. This live feed will start a few minutes prior to liftoff.
This suborbital flight is designed to test a number of objectives, from how the vehicle’s three Raptor engines perform, and the overall aerodynamic entry capabilities of the vehicle, including its body flaps, to how the vehicle manages propellant transition. SN8 will also attempt to perform a landing flip maneuver, which would be a first for a vehicle of this size.
With a test such as this, success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn as a whole, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship.
From Behind the Black:
If all goes right, this eighth prototype of Starship will go about 40,000 feet in the air, turn over and attempt to control its return belly side down, and then upright itself just before landing so it can complete a vertical landing like a Falcon 9 first stage. The company gives themselves a one in three chance of landing the spacecraft. SpaceX has also made it clear that their primary engineering goal on this flight is to test that return through the atmosphere, so that is the part of the flight they most need to succeed. Failing to land afterward but getting that data will make this test a complete success.
No matter what happens, the company has prototypes 9 through 15 waiting in the wings.