Flying chunks of concrete, bent sheets of metal, craters dug deep into the ground: the immense power of the first test flight of the SpaceX Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, caused severe damage to the launch pad in Texas.

Repairing the damage from Thursday’s unmanned test flight is expected to take several months, which could delay further launch attempts and slow development of the rocket NASA plans to use on future lunar missions.

Before testing, SpaceX chief Elon Musk said it would be a “victory” to blow up Starship without destroying the launch pad. Luckily for Musk, the 120-foot (120-metre) rocket successfully took off and climbed for about four minutes before crashing and detonating over the Gulf of Mexico.

But SpaceX engineers may have underestimated the damage done by Starship’s first 33 rocket engines. An AFP photographer saw the landscape around the launch pad appear deserted a few days later. During takeoff, SpaceX video showed a shower of debris flying towards the Gulf of Mexico more than 420 meters (1,400 feet) away. A cloud of dust hung over a small town several miles (kilometers) away, according to local media reports.

Photographs of the launch site show the huge still-standing launch tower and the rocket launcher that supported Starship prior to launch, damaged but still intact.

However, as the images posted on social media show, there is a huge crater underneath.

“As the speed of the engines slows down, it can smash the concrete, it just can’t eat it,” Musk said on Twitter, another company in his portfolio, on Saturday.

months of delay

“The radius of debris and disturbance was probably larger than anyone expected,” Olivier de Weck, a professor of aerospace sciences and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told AFP.

“The main damage to the launch pad is below where the flames touched the ground,” he told AFP, adding that repairing the crater will “take several months.”

De Weck said the Starship launch site is not a “flood system,” unlike others used for large rockets of this type. They are used to fill the substrate with water, cool it and absorb shock and sound waves.

Also on the territory of Texas there are no so-called fire trenches – tunnels that divert hot exhaust from the site. But these features come at a high price, especially when they have to go up against Starship’s awesome power.

After Thursday’s testing, Musk said SpaceX had begun making “a giant, water-cooled steel slab to fit under the launcher.” But it “wasn’t ready in time” and the engineers “accidentally” calculated that the pad could still stand the test. Known for his bold goals, Musk believes the next launch attempt will be possible “in a month or two.”

steel melting

Philip Metzger, a scientist who previously worked on launch pad physics at NASA, said he thought the steel plate plan might be a “good decision”.

“The problem,” he added, “is a rocket so big and takes so long to get off the ramp that the ‘heat from the rocket’s 33 engines’ can melt the steel.”

Metzger, now a professor at the University of Central Florida, said that “provided they have a high enough flow rate,” this problem can be solved by pumping water through channels in the steel. He said this approach didn’t completely solve the shockwave issue, but he believed the Starship was designed to be strong enough to survive.

Metzger told AFP that designing a launch pad can be as difficult as designing a rocket. The first launch of NASA’s new SLS mega-rocket in November caused damage to the Florida launch pad, including malfunctioning of the launch tower’s elevators.

Before the next test flight, SpaceX will need to identify the exact issues behind Thursday’s test. In a video released by the company, several of Starship’s 33 engines failed. Neither stage of the rocket could separate as planned, causing SpaceX to trigger its self-destruct mechanism.

De Weck said the private aviation firm will need to persuade the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow the new flight. The US agency investigating the blast confirmed that no one was injured in the test on Thursday. Indicates that new tests will not be approved if there is any threat to public safety.

De Weck reiterated Musk’s assessment of the case, calling it “more of a success than a failure.”

“The reason they achieve these amazing things,” the MIT professor continued, “is because they’re willing to take risks and break things. But they learn from that and they grow very, very quickly.”