Last Thursday saw the long-awaited launch of the starship, you know, the largest rockets and sets of ships ever created by man. With the capacity to carry over a hundred people, a large part of the plans to colonize the moon and carry out the first manned mission to Mars currently involves making the starship capable of taking off and carrying us further than any human being has ever been able to do so. A lot matters on this mammoth project from SpaceX.

As you already know, after four minutes of launch and after several problems the starship exploded while in free fall at an altitude of 18 miles. It was a predictable ending, although the initial aspiration is that the starship was able to make a complete orbit around Earth. In other words, not all the desired objectives were met, but even so we cannot qualify as proof of failure, because the ship was able to climb up to 39 kilometers, and both from this climb and from the problems that occurred, the company can extract deep learning that can be apply to future tests.

The live image of the launch gave us very interesting images and data, such as the fact that the three Raptor engines did not activate for takeoff, and if we look closely, we can also see what appears to be a storm of debris from the ground. the launcher also flew up, hitting everything in its path. It pointed to the ground below the Raptors it was somehow affected by the firestorm and pressure from the engines. We did not expect its level of erosion to be so high As we could later verify.

Many launch platforms have a flame deflector pit, that is, a pipe on the ground below the initial location of the engines that receives the flames thrown out by the engines and redirects them in another direction. However, the SpaceX launch site does not have this facility, something that Elon Musk already advanced on Twitter a few years ago… suggesting that they may have to regret it in the future. Now, with many doubts in the air, it seems that this was a huge mistake.

Failure of the first three engines, as well as the loss of the hydraulic system responsible for adjusting the orientation of the engines to adjust the rocket’s course could have been caused by huge chunks of concrete which jumped from the base of the platform in all directions. However, in addition to that, there is a lot of other debris going in all directions, which is a huge hazard, and this could subsequently cause, and it is quite likely, that the FAA will not allow another launch under the same conditions.

Elon Musk confirmed after the explosion that the next flight would take place in a few months, and when information about the platform was released, he confirmed that they planned to use a water-cooled steel plate between the platform and the platform. starship engines, but that this piece was not ready for launch in time. However, we will have to wait to check whether the piece actually exists, if it offers the necessary security and subsequently if the company regains the authorization to launch. If not, SpaceX will have to make very significant changes to the platform, and the question is whether they are possible on that terrain. Otherwise, the plans could get really complicated.