<p>SpaceX on Tuesday successfully completed a flight of less than a minute of the largest prototype ever tested of the future rocket Starship, which the company hopes to use one day to colonize Mars.</p>.<p>"Mars is looking real," SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in response to a fan.</p>.<p>The current Starship prototype is fairly crude: it's a large metallic cylinder, built in a few weeks by SpaceX teams on the Texas coast, in Boca Chica -- but it's still smaller than the actual rocket will be.</p>.<p>Several previous prototypes exploded during ground tests, during a learning process of trial and error.</p>.<p>In images shared Tuesday by several space specialists, including the <a href="https://NASASpaceFlight.com" target="_blank">space news website</a>, the latest prototype -- dubbed SN5 -- reached an undetermined altitude before descending to land in a cloud of dust, demonstrating good trajectory control.</p>.<p>"And when the smoke cleared, she stood there majestically, after the 150 meter flight!" tweeted NASA's top scientist, Thomas Zurbuchen.</p>.<p>The so-called "hop test" was planned to reach a 150-meter (492-foot) altitude, but SpaceX has not confirmed any details about the test flight.</p>.<p>In 2019, an earlier prototype -- the smaller Starhopper -- flew to 150 meters in altitude and returned to land.</p>.<p>The Starship envisioned by Musk will be 120 meters tall and will be able to land vertically on Mars.</p>.<p>"We are going to the Moon, we are going to have a base on the Moon, we are going to send people to Mars and make life multi-planetary," Musk said Sunday, after welcoming two NASA astronauts back from the International Space Station.</p>.<p>The astronauts had traveled in the Dragon capsule developed by SpaceX.</p>
<p>SpaceX on Tuesday successfully completed a flight of less than a minute of the largest prototype ever tested of the future rocket Starship, which the company hopes to use one day to colonize Mars.</p>.<p>"Mars is looking real," SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in response to a fan.</p>.<p>The current Starship prototype is fairly crude: it's a large metallic cylinder, built in a few weeks by SpaceX teams on the Texas coast, in Boca Chica -- but it's still smaller than the actual rocket will be.</p>.<p>Several previous prototypes exploded during ground tests, during a learning process of trial and error.</p>.<p>In images shared Tuesday by several space specialists, including the <a href="https://NASASpaceFlight.com" target="_blank">space news website</a>, the latest prototype -- dubbed SN5 -- reached an undetermined altitude before descending to land in a cloud of dust, demonstrating good trajectory control.</p>.<p>"And when the smoke cleared, she stood there majestically, after the 150 meter flight!" tweeted NASA's top scientist, Thomas Zurbuchen.</p>.<p>The so-called "hop test" was planned to reach a 150-meter (492-foot) altitude, but SpaceX has not confirmed any details about the test flight.</p>.<p>In 2019, an earlier prototype -- the smaller Starhopper -- flew to 150 meters in altitude and returned to land.</p>.<p>The Starship envisioned by Musk will be 120 meters tall and will be able to land vertically on Mars.</p>.<p>"We are going to the Moon, we are going to have a base on the Moon, we are going to send people to Mars and make life multi-planetary," Musk said Sunday, after welcoming two NASA astronauts back from the International Space Station.</p>.<p>The astronauts had traveled in the Dragon capsule developed by SpaceX.</p>