Second stage was terminated a few minutes after separation. Not sure why.

double aught said:

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Second stage was terminated a few minutes after separation. Not sure why.

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Ok, well not fake news then

All of the mocking and laughing faces you see on social media don't give me a lot of hope for humanity. I wish Elon would send a lot of those people on a one-way trip to Mars.

OKCAg2002 said:

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All of the mocking and laughing faces you see on social media don't give me a lot of hope for humanity. I wish Elon would send a lot of those people on a one-way trip to Mars.

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I'm sure he wouldn't want them there as he's building his city there.

Who said anything about giving them a city to live in?

OKCAg2002 said:

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Who said anything about giving them a city to live in?

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Send them to Titan. It stinks like hell there

The primary objective was to first clear the tower again and then achieve separation. The secondary/first objective was to demonstrate the 'stage 0' improvements work, which apparently they did. The engines all fired up and worked as programmed, to our knowledge.

2nd stage RUD was unfortunate as testing the heat shield would have been good but really the status of stage 0 for re-use is what we all want to see. My guess is they are ready to go again in 4 weeks. Big improvements in methane/oxygen pumps are going to happen immediately (more pumps for rapid refueling/loading etc), and it is already self evident that there was a tremendously lower amount of debris flung about with this launch.

Let's see if they have to/decide to disassemble any big parts of the booster bidet, and when it is next tested, then what changes are made in terms of hardware for the stage separation ring etc. The ships are already built (booster included), and the key items on the FAA checklist SpaceX probably at this moment knows what they are going to do to address as to safety concerns (RUD on command instead of spinning out of control for a minute etc. also probably was a good thing to a degree moving forward).

My swag is the 2nd stage RUD was due to damage from the heat/electronics/pneumatics around the gimballing vacuum engines and pumps (happened as/after cutoff) so no real clue but ultimately the starship system/stack is 2-0 now in getting up over 50K feet from launch. What SpaceX couldn't afford in this case is a vehicle 'almost' in full orbit that was out of control/not responsive to FTS commands, so that was perhaps prioritized.

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My guess is they are ready to go again in 4 weeks.

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The YouTube space nerds all seem to be saying February/March but I hope you're closer to correct.

They know what they are doing. Could have easily worded it "SpaceX successfully meets all primary objectives in latest launch". The left is so upset that they've lost one of their echo chambers that they want to take X, Tesla, and SpaceX all down at once.

Kunkle for Congress TX-34 said:

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This is my district and a game changer for South Texas. I do everything in my power to promote SpaceX. I grew up fishing the surf on this beach and my children get to watch rockets launch from it.

TX-34 is in the top 4 highest poverty districts in America. Dreams of becoming a global spaceport are not to far fetched at this point.


Unfortunately, I am willing to bet money that there will be another environmental assessment from some agency getting in the way. They may just want to push everything to the Cape, unfortunately.

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The environment at and around the Cape with its swamps, mangroves, gators, turtles, seasonal birds, and manatee is way more sensitive than Boca Chica.

Oh, I agree with you. However, since this is a private complex, I do not believe the same "rules" apply…or are enforced I should say.

It is strictly political.

Witness our POV of the world’s largest and most powerful rocket ever, fly with 33 raptor engines (something MANY had doubts about!) HUGE congrats to the teams @SpaceX / @elonmusk. What a STUNNING launch!!! Wait till you see all of our 4K footage 😍 pic.twitter.com/SxK3j5umaq

— Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut) November 18, 2023

Philip J Fry said:

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They know what they are doing. Could have easily worded it "SpaceX successfully meets all primary objectives in latest launch". The left is so upset that they've lost one of their echo chambers that they want to take X, Tesla, and SpaceX all down at once.

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Next time Elon needs to state "The goal of IFT-3 is to blow up the rocket". Of course, then he'd probably make it to orbit and then catch both pieces with Mechazilla

Media: FAIL!!!!!

@SpaceX @austinbarnard45 @WholeMarsBlog @SawyerMerritt @elonmusk

Starship Entry in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 pic.twitter.com/L6H1YZbW3E

— Elias J. Sobrino Najul (@eliassob) November 18, 2023

TexAgs91 said:

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@SpaceX @austinbarnard45 @WholeMarsBlog @SawyerMerritt @elonmusk

Starship Entry in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 pic.twitter.com/L6H1YZbW3E

— Elias J. Sobrino Najul (@eliassob) November 18, 2023

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That makes it look like the FTS didn't blow up starship.

Oh boy. Streaking over water close enough to PR where people can film it is not good. That's got a 6 month time out written all over it. Any reason to delay another launch license will be jumped on.

TexAgs91 said:

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@SpaceX @austinbarnard45 @WholeMarsBlog @SawyerMerritt @elonmusk

Starship Entry in Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 pic.twitter.com/L6H1YZbW3E

— Elias J. Sobrino Najul (@eliassob) November 18, 2023

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Not sure what that is, but it's not starship

Mathguy64 said:

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Oh boy. Streaking over water close enough to PR where people can film it is not good. That's got a 6 month time out written all over it. Any reason to delay another launch license will be jumped on.

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At the altitude of entry interface, that could easily be >30 miles away. The flight path was supposed to skirt just north of Puerto Rico so I don't see any evidence that it was off course.

YellowPot_97 said:

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Not sure what that is, but it's not starship

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How come?

What?

TriAg2010 said:

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YellowPot_97 said:

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Not sure what that is, but it's not starship

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How come?

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Too low and moving too fast relative to the viewer. It would be much higher and "appear" to be moving slower than what that video shows.

YellowPot_97 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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YellowPot_97 said:

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Not sure what that is, but it's not starship

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How come?

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Too low and moving too fast relative to the viewer. It would be much higher and "appear" to be moving slower than what that video shows.

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Too low based on what? It was supposed to be in the upper atmosphere or in space, but we know it wasn't because it RUDed. So given that, what altitude was it supposed to be at?

YellowPot_97 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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YellowPot_97 said:

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Not sure what that is, but it's not starship

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How come?

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Too low and moving too fast relative to the viewer. It would be much higher and "appear" to be moving slower than what that video shows.

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I think it's pretty unlikely that some other large debris reentering the atmosphere at the time and place Starship came down.

Thanks to NOAA's Kenneth Howard for pointing me to this NOAA weather radar data showing a debris cloud exactly over my estimated Starship reentry point! pic.twitter.com/ygmgu1uIym

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) November 18, 2023

Bregxit said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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YellowPot_97 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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YellowPot_97 said:

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Not sure what that is, but it's not starship

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How come?

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Too low and moving too fast relative to the viewer. It would be much higher and "appear" to be moving slower than what that video shows.

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Too low based on what? It was supposed to be in the upper atmosphere or in space, but we know it wasn't because it RUDed. So given that, what altitude was it supposed to be at?

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SpaceX's telemetry before it was lost showed Starship was at 148km altitude moving at 24000kph.

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Hmmm. I would guestimate that's about 10 degrees above the horizon, which would make that 839km away. Although if that was 20 degrees, it's 406 km.

Don't know what else it would be though. Maybe the telemetry was showing the altitude when it first broke up.

Scott Manley has, as per usual, excellent analysis.

Of note Starship was shedding TPS tiles long before staging. It was not going to survive reentry. Also appears to be a large LOX leak develop as it went into terminal guidance.

Could we not see the second stage RUD? Seems I saw a full explosion when the telemetry paused at 22K km / hr and 149 kms altitude.