Elon Musk assesses new launchpad design for Starship

By Trevor Mogg Published November 20, 2023

SpaceX launched its Starship vehicle for the second time on Saturday.

Unlike the first test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket in April, which ended in a spectacular fireball just a few minutes after launch, this time the second-stage Starship spacecraft managed to successfully separate from the first-stage Super Heavy booster. A few minutes later, however, the booster exploded during its descent, while the spacecraft also failed to complete its flight.

Recommended Videos

Still, SpaceX hailed the mission a success for having achieved stage separation and will use the gathered data to improve the flight system for the third test flight.

But it wasn’t only the rocket that SpaceX engineers were assessing. They were also keen to see how the new launchpad design held up under the huge pressure and force unleashed by the Super Heavy booster as it lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

It turns out that it did pretty well, with Elon Musk saying on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday that the pad was in “great condition” and that no refurbishment was necessary for the next flight.

Just inspected the Starship launch pad and it is in great condition!

No refurbishment needed to the water-cooled steel plate for next launch.

Congrats to @Spacex team & contractors for engineering & building such a robust system so rapidly! pic.twitter.com/py5m1uhtEi

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023

That’s a significant improvement over the first test flight in April, which saw the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines completely destroy the launchpad, sending concrete and other debris over a large area.

The launchpad design included what Musk has previously described as a new “mega-steel pancake” that combines with the water deluge system to offer protection against the 17 million pounds of thrust generated by the Super Heavy booster during liftoff.

Following Saturday’s test mission, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that no injuries or property damage had been reported as a result of the midair explosions. The FAA will now oversee a SpaceX-led investigation into the mission before deciding upon any conditions needed for a third test flight.

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Space

NASA’s new telescope can see 100 times more sky than Hubble in a single shot

NASA just launched a $4 billion telescope to map billions of galaxies

NASA Roman Telescope Launch Featured

The Hubble telescope has an almost legendary status. Over the last three decades, Hubble gave us some of the most spectacular close-ups of the universe ever captured, and now, NASA’s newest space telescope wants to see the bigger picture. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:26 a.m. EDT on August 30. Roman is now beginning a roughly three-month journey toward the Sun-Earth L2 point, nearly a million miles away, where it will spend its primary five-year mission surveying huge portions of the cosmos.

Roman carries a 2.4-meter primary mirror, the same diameter as Hubble’s, but its Wide Field Instrument can capture a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s. NASA expects it to use that combination of sharpness and scale to map billions of galaxies, study dark matter and dark energy, and discover enormous numbers of previously unknown worlds.

Space

NASA built the Roman Space Telescope to study dark matter, but it can also help protect Earth from killer asteroids

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope wasn't built to hunt asteroids, but it turns out to be great at it.

Nancy Grace Roman space telescope.

NASA is about to launch a telescope built to unlock some of the universe's biggest mysteries, and it turns out that same design could help protect Earth along the way.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 2026, with a primary mission focused on studying dark matter and dark energy - the invisible forces shaping galaxies and cosmic expansion. Researchers now say its unique design also makes it unexpectedly effective at spotting dangerous asteroids headed our way (via MIT Technology Review).

Space

Space is becoming Bezos and Musk’s next data center site, and we have every reason to worry

The AI boom is coming for the night sky

How Vast's space station will look in orbit.

AI data centers already consume vast amounts of electricity and water on Earth, so Silicon Valley has begun looking somewhere considerably more spacious... literally.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, along with several other companies, have proposed enormous constellations of satellites designed to operate as orbital data centers. However, environmental groups and former space officials are now warning that putting them into orbit at the proposed scale could have severe consequences for Earth's atmosphere and the night sky.