Did they not have the center of mass right? It started tipping over as soon as it left the ground.

Would max q from a true orbital flight be greater stress than flipping end over end at those speeds? Like others I'm shocked it didn't break itself apart

The ocean has lot's of stuff in it, not just the Bismarck and Titanic.

The spaceship was empty and had no payload.

jt2hunt said:

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The spaceship was empty and had no payload.

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Starship*... Yes I understand that. But it was moving laterally when it should have been moving vertically. So something was off.

will25u said:

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Did they not have the center of mass right? It started tipping over as soon as it left the ground.

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A result of a few engines not firing?

Tune in!!!! Elon and SpaceX going over what went wrong.

FAKE.

Looks like maybe that's a fake "space x" yt account

RED AG 98 said:

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Looks like maybe that's a fake "space x" yt account

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My bad.

nortex97 said:

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The ocean has lot's of stuff in it, not just the Bismarck and Titanic.

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Truth.

Signed, me and everyone else who has lost a prop on a bay boat.

Has anyone checked on the turtles?

tk for tu juan said:

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Concrete and debris going out into the ocean will ruffle some people

Liftoff from Starbase pic.twitter.com/rgpc2XO7Z9

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023

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Nothing wrong a new artificial reef.

will25u said:

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Did they not have the center of mass right? It started tipping over as soon as it left the ground.

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Engines failed on the side it leaned / drifted too.

The gimbaling engines corrected it, but yeah, did a baby astral slide there to start.

JobSecurity said:

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Would max q from a true orbital flight be greater stress than flipping end over end at those speeds? Like others I'm shocked it didn't break itself apart

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It's engineered to do a rotation to throw off starship to clear it from the booster.

Certainly not going into repeated cartwheels but they had to design it for that angular force and sheer.

Starship successfully lifted off from the orbital launch pad and climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico pic.twitter.com/PcmHRscp6w

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023

PJYoung said:

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Dead raptor burning out.

Yep.

Allow me to introduce you to the conversation you'll be having for the next 2-3 years pic.twitter.com/ORT34fvXUo

— Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) April 20, 2023

I suppose it's possible, but I Am personally skeptical…

The vehicle was well out of control for a relatively long period of time, and if it had an auto destruct, it took its sweet time to trigger…

Looked more like to me that the ground wanted to gather as much data as possible before destroying down range…

I have no idea what Artemis has beyond what I assume remains unchanged on the SRBs…. For reference, the 51-L SRBs continued up hill, post crew vehicle and ET failure, until the RSO sent the destruct command (as evidenced by both SRBs being terminated simultaneously)…

Now, even if there was an auto destruct feature on the Starship launch today, I guarantee there was a backup manual destruct feature, and frankly, based on how long the vehicle was allowed to burn while clearly out of control (and folks, it was out of control to some extent at liftoff, and it only got worse), then the auto destruct had to have failed and a backup manual command was sent…

Either way, doesn't matter…the vehicle was lost (and folks are welcome to argue as to whether or not that matters based on a NASA vs SpaceX paradigm)…

Well there ya go. I was just swagging it, based on location of camera and field of view.

losing the vehicle does not matter a whit. It was going to davey jones even if the whole flight went flawlessly. So now they have data to see weaknesses they my not have known or thought about and the next iteration can be tailored to see what is next in line to fix.

lb3 said:

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FireAg said:

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I left in 2006...unless she's in Medical Operations, EVA, or has become an FD from a former position in the last few years, I probably don't...but never know...PM me if you want...

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Aggie, back row ISS flight controller leaving in 2006…. You had my curiosity before but now you have my attention.

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PM me…

If it helps, I hung out with Aerosmith in the original BFCR back in 2004 when they visited prior to the Super Bowl…

Bregxit said:

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Bubblez said:

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Teslag said:

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Bubblez said:

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Caliber said:

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Ag87H2O said:

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AustinAg2K said:

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One thing I love about SpaceX is their ability to cheer on a failure. If this had happened at NASA, people would be freaking out, and it would shut down the program from the next six years. At SpaceX, everyone is pumped at having a massive explosion. They really have the right attitude to make amazing things happen. At NASA, they don't allow any sort of failure at all, even if it's unmanned.

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Agree. This is how you move the ball forward. Launch, learn, redesign, launch again, learn ... the iterative approach advances the technology and allows them to progress at a faster pace. It would be hard to take those kinds of risks and vehicle failures if he wasn't filthy rich. He is spending a ton on R&D plus the cost of the rockets and launch vehicles. No telling how much it will cost to repair the launch tower and tank farm.

We learn from our failures and mistakes. Musk fails fast, evaluates and learns quickly, and keeps plowing ahead. It is an admirable quality and incredibly exciting to watch.

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A lot of people keep trying to introduce Agile methods like this in a lot industries.

Many of the old timers keep pushing back just calling it lazy engineering instead of even trying to understand the idea of failing fast to keep things moving faster.

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Agile works great for software monkeys as long as they keep their schedule and quality commitments. The cost of a build and test cycle is not much more than development time. In other disciplines when you have to manufacture something, the costs of building prototype failure after prototype failure quickly add up.

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And yet it's working perfectly for Space X

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Again, its a cost issue at that point. Musk is capable of plowing billions upon billions into SpaceX. Not every company is in that position to eat all of those up front development costs.

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I the past 11 years since SLS started, SpaceX has developed the Falcon 9, Dragon, Dragon 2, nailed rocket reusability and is sending crewed missions to soace for under $1 billion in development cost total. Elon isn't plowing billions upon billions into anything. SpaceX is making a killing now by launching most tonnage each year into space.

Meanwhile SLS has had one launch in 11 years at a cost of $24 billion.

Which approach seems better?

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Pretty amazing they have accomplished all of that for only $1B!

Not sure if this has been posted yet but was reading the other day that this booster was already a few generations behind what they have coming down the pipeline. They are re-designing a lot of things already. The next one that flies will have a lot of changes already baked in, plus whatever they learned from this flight.

Looks like it partially separated, based on the onboard cams.

Not a Bot said:

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Not sure if this has been posted yet but was reading the other day that this booster was already a few generations behind what they have coming down the pipeline. They are re-designing a lot of things already. The next one that flies will have a lot of changes already baked in, plus whatever they learned from this flight.

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Yes almost everything that launched today is 'old tech' as SpaceX goes. For example, the next starship that launches won't have those giant fins and as was mentioned earlier the hydraulic system that failed today was already jettisoned for an electric system on the next rocket.

Tim Dodd was saying of those 33 raptor engines not a lot of them are identical tech. You have many iterations of technology all bunched together and the data they gathered today on their performance will be priceless.

FireAg said:

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I suppose it's possible, but I Am personally skeptical…

The vehicle was well out of control for a relatively long period of time, and if it had an auto destruct, it took its sweet time to trigger…

Looked more like to me that the ground wanted to gather as much data as possible before destroying down range…

I have no idea what Artemis has beyond what I assume remains unchanged on the SRBs…. For reference, the 51-L SRBs continued up hill, post crew vehicle and ET failure, until the RSO sent the destruct command (as evidenced by both SRBs being terminated simultaneously)…

Now, even if there was an auto destruct feature on the Starship launch today, I guarantee there was a backup manual destruct feature, and frankly, based on how long the vehicle was allowed to burn while clearly out of control (and folks, it was out of control to some extent at liftoff, and it only got worse), then the auto destruct had to have failed and a backup manual command was sent…

Either way, doesn't matter…the vehicle was lost (and folks are welcome to argue as to whether or not that matters based on a NASA vs SpaceX paradigm)…

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Respectfully I think it's tempting to go down this road and think of 'how nasa would do things differently.'

I think overall though, to Elon, SpaceX benefits from SLS, doesn't see them as a competitor, and it gets nasa on 'team SpaceX' moreso with starship too. They can complement/learn from each other, internet message board dynamics aside.

Respectfully, you're talking out of your ass…

We did not barely avoid losing crews multiple times by the slimmest of margins during the Shuttle program…

Now I don't have a problem with the way SpaceX is doing things at all…their paradigm and mandate are simply different…

But before you go pissing on the Shuttle program, at least understand what you're talking about and the facts…you clearly have zero understanding about fault tolerances and redundancies that were mandated and followed…

I applaud SpaceX for doing the things they are doing, but there is a price to spaceflight…the venture is as bold as it is unforgiving…neither NASA or SpaceX approaches are drastically more safe or dangerous. SPACEFLIGHT is dangerous…it's not a game, and the risks are always high no matter who plants your ass in zero-G…

nortex97 said:

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FireAg said:

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I suppose it's possible, but I Am personally skeptical…

The vehicle was well out of control for a relatively long period of time, and if it had an auto destruct, it took its sweet time to trigger…

Looked more like to me that the ground wanted to gather as much data as possible before destroying down range…

I have no idea what Artemis has beyond what I assume remains unchanged on the SRBs…. For reference, the 51-L SRBs continued up hill, post crew vehicle and ET failure, until the RSO sent the destruct command (as evidenced by both SRBs being terminated simultaneously)…

Now, even if there was an auto destruct feature on the Starship launch today, I guarantee there was a backup manual destruct feature, and frankly, based on how long the vehicle was allowed to burn while clearly out of control (and folks, it was out of control to some extent at liftoff, and it only got worse), then the auto destruct had to have failed and a backup manual command was sent…

Either way, doesn't matter…the vehicle was lost (and folks are welcome to argue as to whether or not that matters based on a NASA vs SpaceX paradigm)…

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Respectfully I think it's tempting to go down this road and think of 'how nasa would do things differently.'

I think overall though, to Elon, SpaceX benefits from SLS, doesn't see them as a competitor, and it gets nasa on 'team SpaceX' moreso with starship too. They can complement/learn from each other, internet message board dynamics aside.

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Respectfully, it's irrational to argue whether or not NASA would do thing differently from SpaceX…one is a tax dollar-funded program and the other is a private venture…the rules are simply different…I don't think either is better than the other, given the environments each operates in…as I said, the paradigms are completely different…

FTAG 2000 said:

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Looks like it partially separated, based on the onboard cams.

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I think that's structural break up occurring. Notice the grid fin that looks to be in a normal position below the wing/flap. The wing flap is on Starship, but the grid fin is on the booster. Stage separation is supposed to occur between those two locations.