CatastrophicFailure

The darker looking metal has not been machined, yet. Looks like there's a weld joint about halfway down the bell, that's why the ring of shiny on the second engine. Maybe the flange is some sort of strengthener? Looks like engines at 3 different points in production.

The gift that keeps on not-giving.

Oh good, they must have found that power pack they lost.

Its what you call it when you accidentally warp thru your maneuver node.

Oh, yay, I can like again. Where'd you learn that? I thought it could RTLS from any LEO flight.

Well, they can't do RTLS @ Vandenburg cuz there's no landing pad. But yeah, it's pretty cool that they can make such a significant change to the planned profile "on the fly" like that.

The deployment looked a lot smoother as well. Before they sorta popped half-open then snapped into place. This looked slow and controlled. Also, still out of likes, so here's a... thing.

I'm out of likes for the day, so here's, um... a tardigrade. They can live in space.

...right about the time everybody runs out of likes, too. It was not. IIRC, Vandenburg will probably never see a FH launch, and so won't be equipped for it. It will only be supported out of SLC-39a (38? B? The one's that not SLC-40) and probably Boca Chica.

Two launches in two days by the same provider. Welcome to the... ...er, mid '60's.

I take it back, they still made that one look easy.

That was a much more aggressive 1st stage flip!

Vroom, baby.

Just when you thought barge landings had become "easy," here come two nail-biters in a row.

It seems to be saying broadcast starts at 1:25 PDT now?

Damn. As if the threat of SpaceX economics wasn't enough to scare the competition, those grid fins alone should send them running for the hills. Those things just look mean! Now tell me Musk isn't a Bond villain!

Day something, somesuch... Sigh. More rescue contracts. Where are these people even coming from, anyway?! We've gained two more flight engineers and another pilot, but we still need a scientist, anyway. All of our real scientists are still hiding under an engine bell and throwing turbopumps at anyone who gets within range after I asked if any of them would volunteer for flight training. Probably shouldn't have mentioned the possibility of being stuck in a confined space with Triti for a few weeks.. Anyway, we're keeping it simple this time. We're... um... gonna need a bigger VAB...

As I understand it based on a single Facebook comment on a moderately trustworthy website, yes. ?!? Oh for flarp's flarping sake! How in the great furry flying flarp am I out of likes for the day already?! I just got up, dagnabbit!

This is interesting, haven't seen it mentioned here: Apparently this latest was the first successful 3-engined landing (all the others used a single engine or went... badly).

They are? How can you tell? This isn't a full Block 5, is it?

I'm an old fart, but I'm not getting it...

Meanwhile, in California...

Year 5, Day 287... Rescue alarm is still going off. Which is odd, since we've taped it off, thrown a pile of old socks on it, and even unplugged the console. So it looks like it's Ferdin to the rescue again. Wow... that's a big tree...

Oh good, my likes work again. Now to address the backlog...