RCgothic

Not quite a clean sweep, but sucks to be Northrop or Blue Origin!

Well it clearly hadn't been stolen because the size of the blast indicates the vast majority exploded. Certainly no-one stole it and then replaced it with hundreds of tonnes of more energetic explosive. I find conspiracy theorising about this disaster to be in extremely poor taste. It was an industrial accident involving a warehouse full of improperly stored confiscated ammonium nitrate, an adjacent warehouse full of fireworks, and a welding accident. There's nothing more to it than that.

B1049 and B1051 are now joint flight leaders at 5 recoveries each, at least until B1049 gets its next flight for Starlink-10 later this month. All the Starlinks on Starlink-9 had the sun visor installed.

And a fairing upgrade too! This is a *much* larger fairing!

SN8 is getting stacked!

We know thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate were stored there, and that the port authority were distinctly worried that it wasn't being dealt with. There a credible timeline for how it got there and the cause of the accident. There is nothing else that could have generated a blast equivalent to hundreds of tonnes of TNT stored in that area on record, nor is any other explanation necessary to explain the damage. Further speculation is unnecessary and unhelpful.

I haven't seen any estimates that high. Credible estimates seem to be 500-1100t TNT.

The red smoke is probably combustion of impurities. Ammonium nitrate is what Lebanon's president said was there, and there's a convincing timeline of a ship and confiscated cargo. I don't think conspiracy theorising helps at all. The official explanation is thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate improperly stored. There no reason to doubt that account.

Success!

SN5 is venting. Siren!

Speculation it's a load of nitrogen after being used to chill a bunch of methane in the condenser. And yes, SN5 is now pressed again and the pad is clear.

The flare stack is venting crazy!

Siren! Launch in under 10mins!

SN5 is venting!

I think venting has started at the condenser. Edit: yup, major condenser venting on LabPadre stream now. EditEdit: Farm Venting. Pretty sure fuelling is now in progress.

SN5 is pressurised and the pad is clear. No sign of tank farm activity yet

I was struggling to stay awake to midnight UK time last night. I gave up at 11.45 after no sign of fuelling for a midnight test, so with the test being scrubbed at approaching 1am I think I made the right call!