cubinator 8,735 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Oh my god, STAGE 1 SACRIFICED ITSELF FOR THE BIRDS Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brotoro 3,068 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 *splashed Quote Link to post Share on other sites
munlander1 761 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Just now, cubinator said: Oh my god, STAGE 1 SACRIFICED ITSELF FOR THE BIRDS I was just thinking that the birds better get out of the way before it gets too toasty but there was no reason for my concern Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CatastrophicFailure 16,939 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 1 minute ago, cubinator said: Oh my god, STAGE 1 SACRIFICED ITSELF FOR THE BIRDS I hope it ended with “fly, you fools!” too. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brotoro 3,068 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Yeah... there was weirdness at the end of the entry burn. Flames. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
.50calBMG 247 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Can't wait to see what happened there, almost looked like an off-nominal shutdown during the entry burn. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mitchz95 1,022 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Those seagulls will never know how lucky they were... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ExtremeSquared 222 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 (edited) Last landing failure happened one day short of a year ago. Starlink 4. Edited February 16 by ExtremeSquared Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cubinator 8,735 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 2 minutes ago, munlander1 said: I was just thinking that the birds better get out of the way before it gets too toasty but there was no reason for my concern I was fully expecting to see seabird roast in a few seconds there. Looked like the landing burn started, you could see it in the clouds. I wonder if the engine aborted or if it exploded in flight. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CatastrophicFailure 16,939 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 1 minute ago, cubinator said: I was fully expecting to see seabird roast in a few seconds there. Looked like the landing burn started, you could see it in the clouds. I wonder if the engine aborted or if it exploded in flight. Did anyone catch the “stage 1 FTS has safed” call? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brotoro 3,068 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 That light may have been the explosion when stage 1 hit the sea. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cubinator 8,735 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Just now, Brotoro said: That light may have been the explosion when stage 1 hit the sea. I guess you could call that a 'landing burn'. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tater 27,861 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Did anyone catch the “stage 1 FTS has safed” call? Yeah, I heard it as usual. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RyanRising 471 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 (edited) 24 minutes ago, cubinator said: Oh my god, STAGE 1 SACRIFICED ITSELF FOR THE BIRDS My thoughts exactly! I thought something looked off during the end of the entry burn (flame only to one side), but my mind was taken off of that by the drone ship camera with the birds. A net loss for SpaceX with that, but definitely a net win for those birds. EDIT: Also, I’m surprised they said they lost the booster on stream, even though it was blindingly obvious from the camera views. I remember them bluffing about the center core on the FH test flight for a bit, then just dropping the subject. I guess media pressure was higher that time, though. Edited February 16 by RyanRising spelling Quote Link to post Share on other sites
zolotiyeruki 489 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Eh, I'm sure the birds would have been (safely) blown out of the way if Stage 1 had landed norminally. As always, it'd be interesting to find out what went wrong. It's odd awesome when *not* recovering the booster is the anomaly! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cubinator 8,735 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 5 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said: (safely) blown away by the hot end of a giant rocket booster. I'm pretty sure they'd be killed by the sound alone and they were way too late to start flapping away from a rocket stage dropping out of the sky. I'm sure they're well prepared for regular falcons, but this Falcon is entirely different. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Geonovast 6,580 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Figures, the first one in awhile that I miss watching live.... I feel somehow responsible for this. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brotoro 3,068 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Good orbit. I wonder if the Starlink satellites have enough delta-V to make good orbits in the case of a second burn failure of the Mvac. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Clamp-o-Tron 1,071 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Just now, CatastrophicFailure said: Did anyone catch the “stage 1 FTS has safed” call? Yeah, they did safe the FTS. Just now, Brotoro said: Good orbit. I wonder if the Starlink satellites have enough delta-V to make good orbits in the case of a second burn failure of the Mvac. IDK if they have the thrust, I think the dV would be pretty trivial Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brotoro 3,068 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 60 Starlinks successfully dumped south of New Zealand. Huzzah. Dumped into the correct orbit, I mean. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tater 27,861 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Callouts didn't seem to line up with display... wonder what happened. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kerbiloid 11,481 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 (edited) Spoiler 1. The Ancient Romans first asked birds for prophecy. Space-X didn't. See the result. (While birds were there and waiting.) 2. My last week post appeared to be prophetic. Partially. Spoiler Not the flipper (SN), but a Falcon. Anyway, it works. Also, SN is still going to fly. Let's wait a little. Upd. Got it. Falcon has intercepted the magic, by unexpectedly flying first. Edited February 16 by kerbiloid Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RCgothic 2,469 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 At least it wasn't one of the flight leaders. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Clamp-o-Tron 1,071 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Watch at 26:49 (can’t embed at a timestamp b/c I’m on mobile ATM) for the call for entry burn shutdown, and visually the shutdown. Beginning immediately after that and lasting until the video and S1 telemetry cuts out 13 seconds later, there is a very large plume of sparks and something blue-ish originating from the bottom of the right side of the booster. Plasma I would suspect, which indicates either: The trajectory was too much for the booster to handle (extremely doubtful because the booster lands in the vicinity of OCISLY, and MECO seemed to occur on time) Entry burn somehow was not enough. I will have to go back and compare the Stage 1 telemetry with past Starlink launches, but because the callout was on time and the vehicle didn’t flip out due to asymmetric thrust I will assume the entry burn was mostly nominal. The booster came in at too high of an angle of attack. This is more convincing to me than the other possibilities, but it doesn’t account for how close the booster landing to OCISLY (we saw the light of either the Merlins or somehow an explosion in frame, and those lucky seagulls heard something and flapped about), especially when a large deviation at those altitudes and speeds would bring the booster farther away from the droneship than I imagine grid fins could bring it back from. Finally, my favorite explanation, that is a hardware problem with a Merlin. It needn’t be one of the landing burn engines, but if any of the engines somehow had an issue that would result in it breaking apart due to thermal and aerodynamic stresses, that would explain it. It explains to proximity to the ASDS, the apparently nominal ascent and entry burns, and the streak of plasma up the side of the booster that surely would cause a loss of signal. The only problem is why an engine would fail like that- B1059 has proven itself- would be an unpublicized engine swap, damage during refurbishment, or something during NROL-108. Anyway, just my two cents. Elon remains silent about the cause or any more details. We mourn the loss of B1059 and celebrate the survival of several seagulls. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RealKerbal3x 5,925 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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