Elon Musk provides update on Starship; reveals ‘minor’ damage after July 12 incident

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk provided updates on the Starship Super Heavy Booster's health which caught fire during tests on July 12. The Booster was being tested to prepare the Starship rocket for its first orbital flight which is targeted for this month. Taking to Twitter, Musk shared a picture of the Booster 7 latched onto the SpaceX launch tower and revealed that there appears to be minor damage after yesterday's incident.

"Was just up in the booster propulsion section. Damage appears to be minor, but we need to inspect all the engines", Musk wrote in his tweet. "Best to do this in the high bay".

During the tests, the Booster was suddenly engulfed in huge flames which took many, particularly the mission commentators by surprise. Responding to a video, which has now gone viral on Twitter with over four million views, Musk said that his team is accessing the damage and that the issue was specific to the engine spin start test, a process carried out to start the Booster's Raptor 2 engines. While the fire was extinguished safely, the incident caused the pad to shut down for safety.

Booster 7 rolled back after the fire incident

Earlier today, Chris Bergen from NASA Spaceflight revealed that Booster 7 will be removed from Stage Zero and rolled back to the High Bay. The latest updates confirmed that the Booster itself is fine and the focus would be on the inspection of the engines and their swapping is also possible if necessary. 

Notably, incidents like these might delay Musk's ambition of launching the Starship this month. Earlier in mid-June, he announced that the rocket will be ready to take off in July and even predicted monthly launches of the mega-rocket from August. Recently, the Booster 7 and the Ship 24, which when combined make the Starship rocket, were equipped with upgraded Raptor engines. According to Musk, each of these engines are powerful enough to generate 230 tons of force during liftoff, making Starship the most powerful rocket to ever launch.

It is worth noting, however, that SpaceX still does not have a launch permit from its current Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. On June 14, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) completed its assessment of the impact a Starship launch would cause on the environment around it. It did give a nod to SpaceX for the development but laid a few conditions to further reduce the impact and thus grant a launch license.