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subsided, and the time reached T+3:45, SpaceX’s John Insprucker acknowledged on the webcast: “We should have had separation by now. Obviously, this does not appear to be a normal situation.” Shortly thereafter, just before the T+4-minute mark, the vehicle erupted into a white cloud with a faint hint of a fireball. SpaceX later confirmed that the flight termination systems on both Super Heavy and Starship had been triggered. The inaugural integrated flight of Starship and Super Heavy fell significantly short of the planned splashdown near Hawaii. However, cheers still resurged around Hawthorne. Siva Bharadvaj, another host of the SpaceX webcast, explained: “Everyone here is absolutely pumped to clear the pad and make it this far into the test flight.” Concerns over the pad Whilst the spectacle of the launch was in the skies above, the picture on the ground wasn’t so pretty. Upon their ignition, the Raptor engines generated substantial clouds of dust and sand which engulfed the launch pad entirely. In the process, it is likely
that the engines also picked up fragments from the pad itself. SpaceX released a video which shows material falling into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico as the rocket ascended, likely consisting of sizable chunks of pad material, rocks, or other debris dislodged by the rocket’s intense exhaust plume. Once the dust had settled, a large crater was seen in the place of the rocket, dug out from the massive forces generated by the thrust of the rocket. Photographers, who had set up their cameras to capture the monumental launch and were able to retrieve what they could two days later, noted extensive damage to the launch mount and the nearby water tank farm. Unlike traditional launch complexes, there was no flame trench or similar system in place to redirect the massive plumes generated by the rocket’s exhaust during lift-off. Musk was seemingly rather nonchalant about the damage to the pad despite previously mentioning that: “[His] top hope is please, may fate smile upon us and we clear the launch pad before anything goes wrong,” continuing to say how “it would
Starship test flight mision. Credit: SpaceX, Flickr images
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