Hopefully SpaceX Starship will launch shortly

[Dan Murphy]

Link to live SpaceX

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test

 

[slo]

I’m so glad we were able to watch 2 launches in March - very cool! Very memorable experience.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Amazing launch. On to the next one.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I like space programs terminology. Unplanned disassembly today.

 

[_19disnA]

Am I looking in the right area to see the current launch on that link? Something launched then appeared to tumble out of control and explode about 3 minutes after launch.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Am I looking in the right area to see the current launch on that link? Something launched then appeared to tumble out of control and explode about 3 minutes after launch.

Yes, that was it. It exploded a few minutes into the test flight.

 

[_19disnA]

Ok, wasn't sure if that video was of some prior effort. I now see other current news reports about the rocket failure. Always a bad sign when a rocket turns sideways or starts tumbling. The dynamic forces will then cause it to fail.

 

[RamblingMad]

Goes boom.

 

[Ms.Minnie]

It was exciting to watch the launch, sorry to see it failed. Hopefully the experts learned something for this experience so the nest launch can be successful. If at first, you don't succeed try and try again. Very expensive learning curve.

 

[BrianL]

That's too bad - but that's why it's a test.

 

[peabody58]

 

[dizneegirl]

It wasn't actually a failure. It's the first time they stacked Starship on top of a booster, and tried to launch it.

They considered it lifting off the pad in an actual launch a success. And they fully expected something to happen - Elon Musk promised it would be "exciting."

Every time they launch, they get data, and that helps them fix any problems found, and move on to the next launch. It would have been phenominal for it to have separated, but certainly not a failure today.

Not to mention... this was Starship 24 and booster 7. That shows you how many prototypes they've gone through (with a few having a some spectacular RUDs and hard landings of their own!).

 

[LuvOrlando]

Looked to me like it wasn't working properly as it started to spin instead of separate and then self destructed so as to avoid an explosion when it hit the ground, probably the best way to handle it.

 

[_19disnA]

The perky PR person in the video seemed all giddy during the launch and then tried to put her best 'spin' on things once the craft exploded. I assume someone from SpaceX hit the 'self destruct' button to terminate the launch when it was clear the rocket was tumbling out of control. The video of the 33 engines during launch seemed to show several that weren't igniting or worked intermittently, but not sure if that was planned or some other sort of malfunction.

I guess I will let others quibble over their definition of what a 'failure' is. Clearly various aspects of the rocket were malfunctioning regardless of how you define success/failure.