WASHINGTON, Apr 22 It will take up to two months to repair the launch pad damaged during the test launch of the Starship spacecraft, American entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Twitter.
First flight of Starship , intended for deep space exploration, ended ahead of schedule on Thursday with an explosion at an altitude of less than 40 kilometers.
«Looks like we can be ready for a new launch in a month or two,» Musk wrote in response to a user tweet about damage to the launch pad and possible recovery timeline.
He explained that his SpaceX company planned to lay a water-cooled steel plate in the base, but did not have time and relied on cement, which could not withstand the loads during launch.
Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built for space launches. Together with the Super Heavy Starship booster, it reaches a length of 120 meters. The rocket's first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines, which together are capable of delivering twice the power of a Saturn V or NASA's latest SLS rocket.