RealKerbal3x

This is an image from Maezawa's facebook page (apparently, I found it on reddit). It shows the landing legs a little bit more clearly, though I still can't tell whether they're F9-style flip-out legs or ITS-esque feet. I vaguely remember reading at some point that they were mainly extended via gravity. I don't really know.

I don't think there was any official confirmation that the engine underperformed but it sure looked like it. The landing legs failed to deploy properly but that doesn't account for how fast the touchdown looked.

Yeah, an engine underperformed, so it landed in one piece, albeit hard. It seemed like the damage caused the propellants to ignite about 8 minutes later and boom.

Raptor is a comparatively immature engine right now, and a complex one at that. It's a test program so it's a good thing that they're finding issues now and not when they're flying commercial payloads or, worse, crew. That's probably a part of it, but it also looks like they don't want to break the sound barrier during ascent, or put too much stress on the airframe.

Hmm, this is the problem: Elon's tweets are always just ambiguous enough to cause confusion

Every Raptor is tested at their facility in McGregor, Texas before it is flown. They don't just build an engine and say 'yeah, seems good, send it'.

The initial abort was caused by an overly conservative high thrust limit. There wasn't anything wrong with the amount of thrust the engines were producing, the sensor was simply erroneously reporting a problem.

Apparently the hard landing was due to the landing engine underperforming. I don't know why the terminal velocity would change, externally SN10 was almost identical to SN8 and 9. Also:

Previous flights had an almost completely clear sky, whereas SN10's flight was partly cloudy. It probably looks faster because there's more visual references to infer its speed.

Insane.

Yeah, the LOX tank is at the bottom.

Let's go again for Starlink 17:

Don't wait another hour, Boca Chica does use CST. Launch is probably in about 20 mins.

Yes, since EST is 1h ahead of Boca time (CST). Propellant loading appears to be underway (again).

(referring to potential new launch time)

That was the scary thing about the Shuttle. If something went wrong after SRB ignition, the only option was to commit to a short flight and 'ride out' the SRBs. Once the SRBs burned out they would have to do an RTLS abort. Super sketchy.

That's engine chill!

Tri-vent is engine chill. *gulp* Good luck SpaceX...

(2:14 local)

Lol:

And it's going to be four years at minimum until SLS is actually flying humans to land on the moon, and a similar length of time until that lunar variant of Starship is in service. SpaceX could be in a position to make an orbital Starship flight by the end of the year, and therefore testing aerobraking from orbit. Orbital refuelling is required for the lunar Starship to work, so, should Starship be selected as an Artemis lunar lander, they need to test that and get it working before SLS flies a lunar landing crew on Artemis III. I could see that adding five years to the program. Better to just wait for the commercial superheavy lift vehicles to come online.

SLS is a rocket designed with no specific mission in mind - overpowered for LEO operations, underpowered for beyond LEO. It's not powerful enough to get Orion to low lunar orbit, leaving landers to spend extra dV flying between a distant elliptical orbit and the surface. The entire program has been addled by delays and cost overruns (it was legally required to fly in 2016). And it's not really the only option. Seeing as SpaceX is already designing a variant of Starship to land crew on the Moon, why not just cut SLS out entirely and send crew to and from LEO aboard Dragon/Starliner? With orbital refuelling and maybe some light aerobraking it could probably be done.