SpaceX Starship’s Trail of Destruction After Launched Captured in a Video [Report]

The damage caused by SpaceX's Starship when it launched was expected. Louis Balderas of LabPadre.com shared footage he captured when the space rocket launched.

SpaceX Starship's Launch Causes Damages

Since March 2019, Balderas has kept track of the development of Elon Musk's SpaceX operation and its research and development (R&D) facility in South Texas.

According to Balderas, they have been looking forward to this historic launch of the biggest, most potent rocket in history. They wanted to harness the beast's unbridled might, and they did that, Newsweek reported.

Balderas manages a network of nine cameras spread out across several local properties and installed to keep an eye on and record SpaceX's operations around the clock.

He had a front-row seat for SpaceX's unmanned Starship launch Thursday, the company's maiden attempt to launch a ship using the Super Heavy rocket engine.

The footage showed Starship could pass its launch tower, but a few minutes into the flight, it started to spin and failed to separate properly. It soon burst into a ball of fire and smoke.

The initial launch's path of devastation is shown. Balderas' camera took a video of the region surrounding the launch site, showing it completely engulfed in smoke.

An adjacent van has suffered serious damage due to the debris seen shooting out in all directions. Balderas' equipment was damaged due to the audible rocket launch throughout the entire clip.

The power of the SpaceX launch was visible in the clip as it blew away a few other pieces of camera equipment shown in the movie. Before the sky reappears, smoke and dust push everything back for around 90 seconds.

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SpaceX Starship's Damage Was Reportedly Expected

Balderas says he fully anticipated some damage as he considers the path of destruction left in its wake. According to him, they knew there was a very serious risk of losing their equipment and vehicle since they were set up so close to the launch pad.

Although they were unsure of the full amount of the damage, they were confident that they would lose windows at the very least. Given that it was SpaceX's first attempt at a launch while using the Super Heavy rocket, Musk had projected that there would probably be an explosion.

Balderas, who has a greater awareness of the majority of the work being done, mainly agreed with that sentiment. Since this is R&D, I'm sure even SpaceX was aware that it wouldn't work the first time perfectly. Its feat in clearing the pad and advancing past MAX-Q (beyond the speed of sound) stands alone.

It demonstrates that the car's overall design is sound, Balderas continued. There have been some "significant stepbacks," according to Balderas, with the launch pad and launch mount. He added the launch mount had created a sizable hole 20 feet deep.

New designs will undoubtedly emerge to prevent the concrete base from being destroyed by the 33 raptor engines. The fuel farm also suffered some damage, which will undoubtedly require repair and perhaps even a redesign.

Despite the outcome of the launch, Musk considered Starship's first flight test a success. He even congratulated SpaceX for the launch. He added that he learned much for the next test launch in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Garrett Reisman, an astronautical engineering professor at the University of Southern California who is a former NASA astronaut and a senior adviser to SpaceX, considers the launch "a classical SpaceX successful failure," Reuters reported.

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