SpaceX Super-Heavy LAUNCHES... then Goes BOOM!!

[seigell]

https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-star ... -explodes/

[pakarinen]

FF to about 3:55 in the vid.

https://youtu.be/bl7IqyEyqhY

"Icing on the cake." Ummm, yeah...

[MrShorty]

I had to laugh when it was reported that one of the engineers called this a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."

[Lady Fraktor]

Testing the old soviet way, launch it, goes boom, fix it, launch the next.
Repeat until it does not go boom again.

[helicon]

My nephew who works at Tesla was at the launch. After the unscheduled disassembly he went to a bar with like 200 Space X'rs. He's hoping to transfer to an engineering position at Space X in the near future.

[Ylem]

Testing the old soviet way, launch it, goes boom, fix it, launch the next.
Repeat until it does not go boom again.

Yep, this reminds me of the N-1 rocket. Need more fins so no spin...

[Lady Fraktor]

It is one of the reasons the Soyuz has been in use since the 1960s.
Once you have blown up enough of them you will have it figured out

[PeterD]

Although not a great fan of them I think they will figure it out one day. Just hope nobody gets hurt in the process.

[chris_g]

FF to about 3:55 in the vid.

https://youtu.be/bl7IqyEyqhY

"Icing on the cake." Ummm, yeah...

OMG, they actually clapped and cheered when it blew up! While they might consider it a success, cheering when something is an obvious failure...

[seigell]

Looks like rather significant damage to the Launch Tower and Pad...

[chris_g]

Looks like rather significant damage to the Launch Tower and Pad...

OMG, they probably destroyed the Starship by their stupidity, chunks of concrete flying from super thrusters! Elon, heads need to roll! Good Gawd, what a bunch of maroons!

[helicon]

Pending FAA Investigation from Falling Debris is now in the news...

[seigell]

OMG, they probably destroyed the Starship by their stupidity, chunks of concrete flying from super thrusters! Elon, heads need to roll! Good Gawd, what a bunch of maroons!

It doesn't look like any of the Launch Pad Debris was involved in the Mid-Air Explosion.
1) Super Heavy cleared the Launch Tower cleanly
2) Flight continued for almost 4 minutes - through MAX-Q and Throttle-up
3) Flight proceeded until Second-Stage Separation maneuver

It is that latter maneuver which uses Latches and Centrifugal Force to do what NASA and others do by Explosive Bolts (which wouldn't be too "reusable" - SpaceX's mantra).

Per one explanation:

To separate from the Super Heavy rocket, Starship does not use an active mechanism like other rockets. It simply unscrews itself (like twisting off a bottle cap) to open the connection clamps and then waits for centrifugal force to force separation. That seems to be the mechanism that failed during this flight test. It was probably the least expected failure point. A rocket explosion, in-flight disintegration and flight path deviation are more common setbacks. No one thought the clamps would fail to open — they had been tested a thousand times over. Shortly after the test, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted, “Learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months.”

[chris_g]

Maybe some debris caused some damage to the clamps? With the amount of force the engines provided on lift off, who really knows.

I've seen odd things, a tail light ended up in a boot that was under my seat when I was in an accident with an 18 wheeler. The 18 wheeler hit my driver door, the tail light was from the passenger side, the only window broken was the driver side.

I still say they're a bunch of maroons.