The thunderous power of SpaceX's first test flight of Starship - the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built - inflicted serious damage on its Texas launch site.
Members of the public walk through a debris field near the SpaceX launch pad.STARBASE - Flying chunks of concrete, twisted metal sheets, craters blasted deep into the ground: the thunderous power of SpaceX's first test flight of Starship -- the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built -- inflicted serious damage on its Texas launch site.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk had said before the test that just getting Starship in the air without destroying its launch pad would be"a win." But SpaceX engineers may have underestimated the damage that Starship's 33 first-stage rocket engines would do.During takeoff, SpaceX video showed a hail of debris being blasted as far as the Gulf of Mexico, over 420m away. According to local press reports, a cloud of dust floated over a small town several kilometres away.
After Thursday's test, Musk said that SpaceX had begun building"a massive water-cooled steel plate to go under the launch mount."
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