SpaceX’s Starship’s new endeavor turned dangerous when the starship’s serial number 24 (SN24) caught fire as a result of performing an eight-second static fire test. The whole scenario sounds a lot more dangerous, as it turned out that the fire had even melted a large amount of concrete below the rocket after it gained more than 1,000 tons of thrust. As a result of this unexpected incident, the fire crews managed to come immediately and extinguish the fire till the evening. Moreover, all the concrete parts that melted came to a halt in a garbage pill that has been mounted in the confines of a Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
It has to be noted that the Starship rocket remained grounded for about a year because of the testing concerns, which were then rewarded with a “go ahead” from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in June. Following this, the recent static fire test was performed miserably. The program has been approved on the condition that it will not impact the environment and will take into consideration protective measures for the protection of wildlife. Moreover, the FAA has also asked SpaceX to deploy the use of spray water in order to combat dust and air pollution, thus ensuring sustainability and a green environment.
In addition to this, the recent fire started out after 5:30 pm ET on Thursday, and the mission was aimed at ensuring the stability of its upper stage so that it could be confirmed for the first orbital launch. According to Teslarati, SpaceX has done several such missions and most of them came out as failures. It further said that this large amount of thrust is a positive sign for the mission requirements, but side by side, it seemed that the concrete had melted due to this much heat. Hence, there are some serious alterations that need to be made.
The severity of the incident can be considered from the fact that the testing site was also in flames, including the dumpster. However, in July, there was another incident of fire with Musk’s Starship when the rocket caught fire as a result of ground testing on July 11. The fire was so powerful that even the camera which was deployed to record the whole scenario, started vibrating badly due to the fireballs hitting it.