SpaceX carried out a static hearth check of a prototype Starship rocket on Thursday, during which all six raptor engines have been engaged. The eight-second check appeared to go nicely, save for the problematic brush hearth that ensued.

Starship prototype 24 is at the moment present process checks at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX is making ready the higher stage for an upcoming orbital check of the totally built-in Starship system. During yesterday’s static hearth check shortly after 5:30 p.m. ET, the six Raptor engines created a monstrous roar and kicked up an amazing quantity of smoke and dirt. After the fabric settled and the Starship launch pad reemerged, it turned clear that a number of patches of grass within the space have been burning.

Video of the scene, as captured by NASASpaceflight (the static hearth check begins at 5:35:00 within the video above), confirmed an unusually tall hearth close to the rocket, and wider angles revealed brush fires a number of hundred ft from the stand. Superheated particles from the check even reached a SpaceX dumpster, setting its contents on hearth, according to Teslarati. The fires, which affected a protected habitat, required hearth crews to come back in and struggle the flames.

A previous check on August 9 noticed only two of prototype 24’s Raptor engines put into motion, in what was a subdued model of Thursday’s full-scale check. During the day past, on August 8, SpaceX carried out a restricted static hearth check of a Starship booster prototype, transferring the corporate nearer to an precise orbital launch. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk envisions the totally stacked two-stage Starship rocket as a platform for delivering people and cargo to orbit, the Moon, and Mars.

Teslarati estimates that Thursday’s six-engine check produced 1,380 tons of thrust, probably the most ever for a check achieved at Starbase. And at eight seconds, it was additionally one of many longest static hearth checks achieved at a Starship check stand.

With nice energy comes nice accountability, nonetheless, and SpaceX will not be rising to the problem; the corporate, as Teslarati factors out, is clearly not taking the mandatory precautions to stop fires close to the launch pad and is as an alternative counting on an insufficient spray nozzle and high-temperature concrete:

Most doubtless, eight lengthy seconds of blast-furnace situations melted the highest layer of surrounding concrete and shot a hailstorm of tiny superheated globules in virtually each course. Indeed, in virtually each course there was one thing readily in a position to burn, a fireplace began. In a number of areas to the south and west, brush caught hearth and started to burn unusually aggressively, rapidly rising into partitions of flames that sped throughout the terrain. To the east, particles even made it right into a SpaceX dumpster, the contents of which simply caught hearth and burned for hours.

Eventually, round [10:00 p.m. EDT], firefighters have been in a position to strategy the safed launch pad and rocket, however the principle hearth had already unfold south, out of attain. Instead, they began managed burns close to SpaceX’s roadblock, hoping to clear brush and forestall the hearth (nonetheless unlikely) from continuing in the direction of SpaceX’s Starbase manufacturing facility and Boca Chica Village properties and residents.

More severe precautionary measures, akin to a water deluge system, would doubtless forestall this kind of factor from taking place. Instead, the large pressure, warmth, and burn size is annihilating the concrete beneath the rocket, ensuing within the unfold of superheated particles.

The hearth crews had no downside dousing the flames, however the fires did have an effect on an environmentally delicate space that’s house to threatened wildlife. In June, the Federal Aviation Administration accomplished its environmental evaluation of SpaceX’s proposed website enlargement at Boca Chica, saying the corporate can proceed with its plans, however that it should full round 75 environmental mitigation actions.

Of these actions, SpaceX should implement wildfire prevention measures and in addition use spray water to suppress mud and air air pollution. Given what occurred yesterday, these evidently stay unchecked gadgets on SpaceX’s to-do record. Not cool, Elon. Not cool.

More: SpaceX Signs Deal With NASA to Provide 5 More Crewed Trips to the ISS.