After substantial launchpad damage was caused by SpaceX’s Starship rocket’s first attempt to travel to space, Elon Musk’s company will utilize a water-cooled steel plate for its upcoming rocket launch. This plate can survive the world’s most powerful liftoff.

In an unmanned test flight on Thursday, the enormous spaceship burst minutes after takeoff, 23 miles (37 km) in the sky.

The rocket’s over 30 engines ignited with more force than any previous rocket’s on the ground at SpaceX’s launch site in Texas, severely pummeling the launchpad’s floor as it slowly took off. Photos of the aftermath showed that it created a crater that was several feet deep and sent huge fragments of reinforced concrete flying thousands of feet in the air.

Musk claimed on Friday that while the space corporation has “started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount,” it would not have been finished in time for the launch on April 20. Before the following launch attempt, he said, it would likely be installed “in 1 to 2 months.”

On Friday, Musk said that despite the engines firing at half their normal power during the ground test, SpaceX “wrongly thought” the launchpad foundation would hold up to a single launch.

The multibillionaire CEO conceded that it might have been a mistake to say that there wouldn’t be a need to employ a flame diverter to direct the flames on the ground in 2020.

Other American launch sites, like SpaceX’s own pads at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, employ flame diverters, which are big, ominous passageways that point away from the underbelly of a rocket and direct the rocket’s blazing powers in a controlled direction to minimize damage.

Engineers fear that without such a procedure, launch-related debris might hit the rocket and jeopardize a mission.

Launch and landing pads can be sensitive. According to Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida who has investigated the ground impacts of rocket launches and landings, “any little thing that goes wrong can cause a zipper effect that creates a giant problem.”

This is due to the fact that you are attempting to safely dispose of enough ultra high energy gas to launch a rocket into the sky.

The most recent SpaceX failure served as an example of the company’s rocket development culture, which promotes quick prototype tests and failures that yield information for bettering the design.

Before Starship’s next launch attempt, the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees technical investigations into commercial rocket mishaps and regulates launch site safety, will need to approve changes to the launchpad infrastructure, according to Tom Marotta, who counsels other space companies on launch regulations.

“The bigger challenge for SpaceX is FAA evaluating its steel plate solution and deciding that it meets the regulations in a timely manner,” the executive said.