SpaceX launches

Hoping to wake up and watch this thing go live at 8 am EST and follow it up with a replay of F1 qualifying!

Under 15 minutes to the 20 minute launch window opening!

SpaceX stream went offline in the middle of Elon blathering about crypto?

[edit]

Wait a minute, I went away with 10 minutes on the countdown, came back 5 minutes later, and it already launched?  WTB?

[edit 2] WTB is going on?  Did it blow up?  SpaceX is still showing Elon talking about crypto from 10 minutes ago, and all the other live feeds are either showing an empty pad or endless replays of the launch moment. No video in flight.

Duke said:

SpaceX stream went offline in the middle of Elon blathering about crypto?

[edit]

Wait a minute, I went away with 10 minutes on the countdown, came back 5 minutes later, and it already launched?  WTB?

 

Usually SpaceX streams on Youtube but today it was only from their own website so there were a bunch of streams setup to look like them, sorry about that. It launched about 2 minutes into the 8 am window so you can rewind any of the current livestreams to watch (I'd recommend this one as the sound is good and you the get the RUD of the booster - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6na40SqzYnU)

I'm not very good with YT on the phone app, but it seems much harder to navigate. And I'm pretty sure stuff with a Live tag on the YT splash page should actually be live, but apparently I am wrong about that.

Thanks for the link.

Yeah, one issue with the live feeds is if you come back to them they can continue where you left off, not ideal.

Anyway, successful launch all engines going, pad survived fine, successful hot stage, booster blew up on return (should make for some great shots), Starship self destructed not long before engine cutoff, but it was technically in space.

They got what they really wanted, hot stage.  Lots of data gathered of course. Lots learned for next time.

With the sunrise there should be some spectacular shots coming out!

Ah, I knew the booster went shortly after separation. I actually thought they scuttled it, but maybe not. I hadn't realized the starship went too.

Thanks for spoon feeding me.

Who knows how long this will stay up but this shows the SpaceX feed until just after booster RUD which is pretty cool to see.

There are hundreds of scam streams on YouTube that pretend to be SpaceX live launches but are crypto scum ads. Always go to SpaceX.com or to another known quantity like NSF or Everyday Astronaut. A real SpaceX stream will never mention crypto and I'm not even sure they ever put Elon onscreen.

Exciting flight. Booster worked perfectly to separation, separation worked, Ship ran almost full duration. Something didn't work on the booster after separation - was it blast damage or dynamic fuel problems from a very aggressive flip? I'd love to know what happened to Ship as well. But SpaceX got a huge amount of data so overall it was a good test. Hopefully it won't be long until the next.

Any word on whether the RUD on the booster was a surprise or the result of the flight termination system?

Another way to look at it is the only real thing they didn't get data on was re-entry of the Starship at orbital speed.

The landing of the booster and Starship were effectively going to be crashes anyway.

Scott Manley is always worth watching and has some good educated guesses on what went wrong.

I thought there was an article on Space.com that said the Booster flight termination system fired off on its own. Maybe it was the flip or hot fire separation. Still cool to see it fly with all engines firing. Wish they had onboard video like they do with Falcon 9 launches. Oh, I also read that FAA is going to do an investigation on this RUD too, like the last one, just not as extensive. I know SpaceX wants to start launching more test flights soon and they will shoot for one a month. Wonder if they can manufacture that fast....

The booster was losing engines before the big boom. Something had definitely gone wrong. SpaceX is usually pretty transparent, so hopefully we'll find out. I'm really curious about the cause of the Ship failure myself.

For those in the Florida, there is an interesting launch tomorrow.  It's a heavy with both booster returning.  The center stage will not be recovered.  Some sort of military payload.

aircooled said:

Some sort of military payload.

I believe it's the X-37B "mini shuttle".

Shhhhhhh.           
 

Yeah, I saw the Top Secret... then it just goes ahead and tells you what it is!  I guess exactly what it is doing is Top Secret.

OTV-7 (X-37B) (USSF-52)

Type: Government/Top Secret
Launch Cost: $90,000,000

It is the seventh flight of the X-37B program. United States Air Force Orbital Test Vehicle is built by Boeing. It’s an uncrewed 5000 kg, 8.8 m-long reusable mini-spaceplane capable of autonomous re-entry and landing.

In reply to aircooled :

The heaviest lift rocket currently working for a living!

 I think the Heavy boosters have always returned to the launch site. They don't try to recover the center much anymore because it turns out the performance isn't that much better than a normal Falcon 9. So the center gets expended in most cases otherwise why bother with a Heavy?

There's a point during this flight when there will be four independent autonomous spacecraft zipping around IIRC. I think maybe four, it might just be three. But that's wild. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Usually the center is caught way out in the ocean on the barge instead of RTB on the Heavy. 

Javelin said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Usually the center is caught way out in the ocean on the barge instead of RTB on the Heavy. 

They have launched Falcon Heavy 8 times so far, the first three they attempted to recover the first stage but none of them were successful (once it landed but fell over).  The five after that they deliberately expended it.

The math doesn't work out for a fully recovered Heavy. It's just not that much more capable than an F9 to justify the extra cost. So the majority of Heavy flights are either partially or fully expended. 

I would say the center was successfully landed on the third flight, the mishap happened as it was being transported back IIRC. 

Looks like this launch got pushed back for weather concerns. 

In reply to aircooled :

Doh, missed that one. 

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to aircooled :

Doh, missed that one. 

It got delayed for weather, they're going to try again tonight.

On Thursday evening we got a two-fer.

At 8:00 or so, the Falcon Heavy went up, with its northern route meaning we’d get a good show. And, thanks to clear skies, we did!

It arced over us and just lit up the sky. So fast, so much flame. I got to the top of the Seabreeze Bridge just in time to see it. 

And then, a few seconds after losing sight of the rocket, the two boosters descended. I was able to follow them all the way back to landing. 

At 11:00-ish, a “regular” rocket went up. It was scheduled for the southern route, so I watched from out front. It was cool but not nearly as memorable as the Heavy. 

Not SpaceX news. but since there's not a space thread that is general....

ULA's new rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, successfully launched yesterday early in the morning.  Sadly, the payload failed- it's a private ship, the Peregrine, that was supposed to be the first private craft to land on the moon.  But it's had a fuel leak, and lost most of it today...  https://www.space.com/astrobotic-peregrine-moon-lander-propulsion-failure

For ULA, this was Centaur's first launch, and is the replacement for it's Atlas V.