OV9

I hope Musk is personally strapped to the nose.

That was awesome

Boom

Absolutely incredible, twice the power of the C5.

Dave!

Looking at the footage again - the launch from 45 mins - looks like initially a load of debris or engines explode, then at T+30 seconds another engine explodes, then at 1.04 another engine explodes!

@Mito Man I think you are right - I assume the graphic at the bottom left is the number of operational units - 3 are out immediately after take off and the graphic updates approx 10s after the timeslots you note above to show further drop-outs.

I know they said "everything after it leaves the tower is a bonus", but it's feels bizarre when they all cheer and whoop after it blows up....

It is weird isn't it. I expected them to start chanting "USA USA" at some point.

I was also trying to work out the rocket motor graphic. I initially thought like you that they were not operational, then I wondered if instead of throttling the engines they would alternatively just turn some off. After the "rapid unscheduled disassembly" I came to the conclusion they were almost certainly broken

You could see in some shots they were clearly off, and it really struggled to take off. Cheering perhaps because it didn't destroy the launch pad which is apparently much more expensive and more complex than the Starship itself. I reckon those in the know were underplaying it and expected it to do the full mission because the people in the control room looked thoroughly unhappy compared to previous tests where they also seemed happy enough with the whole thing just taking off and then crashing.

Yep - the Muskrat didn't look impressed.

Launch pad needs a bit of patching up

And not very exciting, but cool to catch it….

mik wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:49 pm

And not very exciting, but cool to catch it….

The fuck is that after effects 30fps stock bullet puff effect

The launch seems to have had all the in depth research and prep as any of his other projects. The engines have destroyed the pad and thrown a whole bunch of debris into the surrounding nature reserve. Love those Texan environmental laws.

There's some great footage here:



Seeing great chunks of debris from the launchpad raining down into the ocean, and the devastation/damage on the ground after the launch is pretty shocking

......aaaaaaaand grounded.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex- ... miles.html

Nice work Elon.

Flight Test 4 was a nerdgasm. Booster hovering over the ocean to test the catch system. Starship then trying its best to hold together at 3km/s, sparking, melting and bits falling off then a final hover for it as well before toppling into the Indian ocean.

Frigging amazing.

Scott Manley's video.

The booster landed on the launch pad, caught by the chopsticks. Just watching on tv, but the landing doesn’t look real!