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Can't fault them for sure, but it's strange for them. SpaceX tends to be very upfront with their failures, and tends to broadcast and in many cases re-upload vi

Can't fault them for sure, but it's strange for them. SpaceX tends to be very upfront with their failures, and tends to broadcast and in many cases re-upload video of their failures. Doubly so when the "failure" isn't part of the primary mission.

peterwaller 9y ago
Agree it is strange. I love their "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ Watching the countdown net it seemed plausible that they didn't know whether it had successfully landed either.
deleted 9y ago
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DavidSJ 9y ago
It wasn't a lie; they just didn't know the result. There have been multiple cases in the past when contact was temporarily lost after drone ship landing.
- kzrdude 9y ago
  It's ok to be professional and say that you need a day to look at a failure (if it's that) before you announce it with the beginnings of an understanding.
stupidcar 9y ago
They know how the press works though. There's a huge amount of attention being paid to this launch, and journalists will be racing to report it ASAP. If they announce immediately that the centre core has been destroyed, the headlines around the world are going to be "SPACEX LAUNCHES CAR BUT LOSES SPACECRAFT", and the failure, however partial, will be a central plank of the story. If they delay the core announcement by a couple of hours or so, the headlines are all "SPACEX SENDS CAR TO MARS", with a minor note appended later to say, "A SpaceX spokesperson later confirmed the landing of the spacecraft's central core did not succeed and it has been lost." Like it or not, issues of timing like this makes a big difference to how the exact same events are reported and perceived.
- deleted 9y ago
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- sneak 9y ago
  Yeah, presumably they worked out the various optimal messaging strategies for every possible combination of failure/success of each part of the mission in advance. Amazing work on their part; I was super impressed after I deduced what you wrote about 2 minutes after the stream ended.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
A restart failure indicates there may be a systemic flaw in all Falcons that could impact recovery efforts in the future as well as other missions that depend on reliable restart capability. One would hope that they have enough telemetry to diagnose the cause.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  I'm sure they do, they normally have pretty detailed information on failures. But even in the worst case first stage engine restart issues will never halt falcon launches. The first stage engines don't ever need to restart to complete the primary mission, and while landing the first stages is a great bonus, it is and always will be a secondary mission objective.
rtkwe 9y ago
They do eventually come out with it but pretty much every failure they've had so far they've kind of glossed over it during the livestream then come back to it later during a separate press conference.

peterwaller 9y ago

Agree it is strange. I love their "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ Watching the countdown net it seemed plausible that they didn't know whether it had successfully landed either.

deleted 9y ago

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DavidSJ 9y ago

It wasn't a lie; they just didn't know the result. There have been multiple cases in the past when contact was temporarily lost after drone ship landing.

kzrdude 9y ago
It's ok to be professional and say that you need a day to look at a failure (if it's that) before you announce it with the beginnings of an understanding.

stupidcar 9y ago

They know how the press works though. There's a huge amount of attention being paid to this launch, and journalists will be racing to report it ASAP. If they announce immediately that the centre core has been destroyed, the headlines around the world are going to be "SPACEX LAUNCHES CAR BUT LOSES SPACECRAFT", and the failure, however partial, will be a central plank of the story. If they delay the core announcement by a couple of hours or so, the headlines are all "SPACEX SENDS CAR TO MARS", with a minor note appended later to say, "A SpaceX spokesperson later confirmed the landing of the spacecraft's central core did not succeed and it has been lost." Like it or not, issues of timing like this makes a big difference to how the exact same events are reported and perceived.

deleted 9y ago
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sneak 9y ago
Yeah, presumably they worked out the various optimal messaging strategies for every possible combination of failure/success of each part of the mission in advance. Amazing work on their part; I was super impressed after I deduced what you wrote about 2 minutes after the stream ended.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

A restart failure indicates there may be a systemic flaw in all Falcons that could impact recovery efforts in the future as well as other missions that depend on reliable restart capability. One would hope that they have enough telemetry to diagnose the cause.

Klathmon 9y ago
I'm sure they do, they normally have pretty detailed information on failures. But even in the worst case first stage engine restart issues will never halt falcon launches. The first stage engines don't ever need to restart to complete the primary mission, and while landing the first stages is a great bonus, it is and always will be a secondary mission objective.

rtkwe 9y ago

They do eventually come out with it but pretty much every failure they've had so far they've kind of glossed over it during the livestream then come back to it later during a separate press conference.