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Just now, JIMMY_the_DOG said:

Really..?

Yeah, you can barely make them out in one of the other feeds.

It looked like the engine didn’t quite manage to zero out all velocity. This stuff is tricky. And those legs don’t have much of a crumple zone. Not like Falcon 9.

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Yeah, looks like leg deploy on Dodd's feed. I wasn't watching that.

4 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

It looked like the engine didn’t quite manage to zero out all velocity. This stuff is tricky. And those legs don’t have much of a crumple zone. Not like Falcon 9.

Yeah, the legs are the weak point, and have been. The idea of those on a rough surface...

That said, I'm sorta amazed it was still standing. I realize it's bottom heavy, but it's still sorta non-intuitive to see, lol.

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Watching a replay, they descend down through the super-heated exhaust plume of their landing engine. There is quite a bit of orange flame that flared up just as they are settling. I'm thinking all that heat (and clearly *something* combusting) may be a problem.

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Just now, ExtremeSquared said:

If the plan to snatch one of these out of the air by the grid fins is real, then those anemic looking legs ought to be enough. That was a pretty high landing velocity.

They're planning to catch SH by its grid fins, not Starship.

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1 hour ago, tater said:

 

Yeah, floppy, floppy legs.

Even if the legs were perfectly deployed I don't think the landing would've been soft enough to stop the kablooie. She came down too fast for that. I wonder if that was just the landing software not being quite tuned right (understandable, given the changes since the last successful landing), or if a Raptor was acting up yet again.

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5 minutes ago, RyanRising said:

Even if the legs were perfectly deployed I don't think the landing would've been soft enough to stop the kablooie. She came down too fast for that. I wonder if that was just the landing software not being quite tuned right (understandable, given the changes since the last successful landing), or if a Raptor was acting up yet again.

The crush cores might well have dealt with it had the legs deployed and locked. It stayed upright and intact, the legs jamming up the skirt could have damaged any number of things in there.

As for Raptor, the color change of the exhaust on the way up was concerning to me, I texted a couple friends (we were going back and forth the whole flight) and said that looked less than nominal (some orange, and some green). That was on ascent, though.

Also:

 

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3 hours ago, OrdinaryKerman said:

They're planning to catch SH by its grid fins, not Starship.

My point is that these similar systems have a rather low expected landing velocity. There's no reason to think the goal shouldn't be right around zero, depending on good software. Falcon plops down on a gyrating barge.

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