The new water deluge system doesn’t work properly
SpaceX has installed and fully tested a new water-cooled steel flame deflector that’s meant to suppress the power generated by the booster’s 33 Raptor engines at launch. Starship, the most powerful rocket ever to take flight, produces around 16 million pounds of thrust when it takes off, and that can lead to all sorts of badness at the launch mount.
For its first flight test, SpaceX didn’t properly provision for this and suffered the consequences as a result: a regulatory investigation and a delayed license for a second launch. The water deluge system, resembling a bidet for rockets, should help, but we won’t know until launch day. Should things go squirrely once more at the environmentally sensitive Boca Chica region, SpaceX could face renewed regulatory scrutiny.
