Elon Musk says Starship prototypes will have first test flights in '2 to 3 months'

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk believes that both the Texas and Florida Starship prototype rockets being developed by the private space company will fly "in 2 to three months," which is an aggressive timeline considering the planned untethered flight of its Starhopper demonstration prototype missed its target of running this past week. SpaceX is developing two Starship prototypes in parallel, at both its Texas and Florida facilities, in what is sometime referred to in the technology industry as a 'bake-off.' Both teams develop their own rockets independently, in an attempt to spur a sense of internal competition and potentially arrive at combined progress that wouldn't be possible with just a single team working together on the task. Earlier this month, Musk stated that the inaugural untethered test of its Starhopper (Hopper for short) Starship tech demo prototype would happen this past Tuesday, July 16.