5 ms·

I would love to see the dashboard that the team that made the decision was looking at. I'd be interested to hear speculation by people who know about this as t

I would love to see the dashboard that the team that made the decision was looking at. I'd be interested to hear speculation by people who know about this as to what they think went wrong. Was it off course? Did the engines not relight in time? Did it not have enough fuel?

ceejayoz 2y ago
They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards space, so it won’t be a relight issue.
- zamalek 2y ago
  I wonder whether doing a catch without the catcher (rapid scheduled crash landing) would be feasible. Data is data.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    > Data is data. This is one of those cases where technically correct is not the best kind of correct. Not all data is useful. A billion rows of sensor output is data but without a timestamp it’s useless. Maybe you need more or less resolution, or additional dimensions.
    - m4rtink 2y ago
      If the duty cycle is stable enough, you can reconstruct the timestamps in many cases based on the data. ;-)
      - mulmen 2y ago
        “If” is doing a lot of work there.
  - CompuHacker 2y ago
    That is what happened. It performs the maneuvers at a primary target site with no catcher, or terrain, or ground-based feedback; the Gulf; switching to an alternate site; the launch tower; if and only if all factors allow for a real catch.
- cubefox 2y ago
  > They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards space, False. The booster was already coming back when the landing abort came through.
  - krunck 2y ago
    Indeed. It had just finished the boostback burn and jettisoned the hot staging ring when the divert was announced. I wonder if after the boostback burn they determined that there was insufficient fuel for a good safely margin when trying a tower catch.
    - m4rtink 2y ago
      The catch attempt is actually a divert - IIRC both Super Heavy and regular Falcon 9 first stage target empty space by default and only divert for landing once all checks out. :-)
      - dotancohen 2y ago
        > target empty space by default Well, water. I see that you're a glass-half-empty guy ))
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    Shoot, I re-watched and you're right. Memory's a fickle thing. https://www.youtube.com/live/l7cM90N-CDc?feature=shared&t=2305 https://www.youtube.com/live/l7cM90N-CDc?feature=shared&t=23... https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6 https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-... does say this now, though: > During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt.
piombisallow 2y ago
Honestly showing that you can re-target it in flight is extremely impressive too. Like, it still soft-landed in water, it didn't blow up.
- TaylorAlexander 2y ago
  Hah. I mean it did blow up (the booster), but not due to impact from a failed soft landing. The soft landing succeeded, then it blew up.
- mempko 2y ago
  The upper stage was also on fire!
- verzali 2y ago
  It's not so much a retarget in this case. The water landing is the default path, they have to manually tell it to target the landing pad if it is a go for the catch.
  - piombisallow 2y ago
    How does that change anything
Prickle 2y ago
There was a picture showing a antenna bent at a roughly 30 degree angle, ontop of the launch tower. Not sure if that was the cause though.

ceejayoz 2y ago

They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards space, so it won’t be a relight issue.

zamalek 2y ago
I wonder whether doing a catch without the catcher (rapid scheduled crash landing) would be feasible. Data is data.
- mulmen 2y ago
  > Data is data. This is one of those cases where technically correct is not the best kind of correct. Not all data is useful. A billion rows of sensor output is data but without a timestamp it’s useless. Maybe you need more or less resolution, or additional dimensions.
  - m4rtink 2y ago
    If the duty cycle is stable enough, you can reconstruct the timestamps in many cases based on the data. ;-)
    - mulmen 2y ago
      “If” is doing a lot of work there.
- CompuHacker 2y ago
  That is what happened. It performs the maneuvers at a primary target site with no catcher, or terrain, or ground-based feedback; the Gulf; switching to an alternate site; the launch tower; if and only if all factors allow for a real catch.
cubefox 2y ago
> They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards space, False. The booster was already coming back when the landing abort came through.
- krunck 2y ago
  Indeed. It had just finished the boostback burn and jettisoned the hot staging ring when the divert was announced. I wonder if after the boostback burn they determined that there was insufficient fuel for a good safely margin when trying a tower catch.
  - m4rtink 2y ago
    The catch attempt is actually a divert - IIRC both Super Heavy and regular Falcon 9 first stage target empty space by default and only divert for landing once all checks out. :-)
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      > target empty space by default Well, water. I see that you're a glass-half-empty guy ))
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Shoot, I re-watched and you're right. Memory's a fickle thing. https://www.youtube.com/live/l7cM90N-CDc?feature=shared&t=2305 https://www.youtube.com/live/l7cM90N-CDc?feature=shared&t=23... https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6 https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-... does say this now, though: > During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt.

piombisallow 2y ago

Honestly showing that you can re-target it in flight is extremely impressive too. Like, it still soft-landed in water, it didn't blow up.

TaylorAlexander 2y ago
Hah. I mean it did blow up (the booster), but not due to impact from a failed soft landing. The soft landing succeeded, then it blew up.
mempko 2y ago
The upper stage was also on fire!
verzali 2y ago
It's not so much a retarget in this case. The water landing is the default path, they have to manually tell it to target the landing pad if it is a go for the catch.
- piombisallow 2y ago
  How does that change anything

Prickle 2y ago

There was a picture showing a antenna bent at a roughly 30 degree angle, ontop of the launch tower. Not sure if that was the cause though.