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Yes. Space debris near orbiting speeds doesn't fall straight down, it's simple physics. If anything planes much further downrange (thousands of km) should be diverted, not immediately under the re-entry point.
It wasn’t at orbital speeds yet.
4M viewers. comparable to top politics events. ship looks to be lost. this was the main part, so it's almost complete failure.
these tests are designed to fail — the data collected now will ensure they don't blow up with actual people on them. test seems like a success to me
It is possible they will have to add one more test launch to their schedule, delaying commercial operations because of that.
It is not a complete failure, but to me, it is more failure than success, even by SpaceX test flight standards.
Compared to the previous flight, that I consider a success, the booster catch was nice, but it is not the first, and they have plenty of tries left to perfect it, so it is not in the critical path.
Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
The last one is stage separation, not an explosion. You can clearly see the "exploded" rocket continuing to fly afterwards.
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Would you bet hundreds of lives and millions of dollars on that?
Yes. Space debris near orbiting speeds doesn't fall straight down, it's simple physics. If anything planes much further downrange (thousands of km) should be diverted, not immediately under the re-entry point.
Do you have a better explanation why they are doing donuts over the pacific at the time of reentry, then were diverted?
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/ABX3133
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N121BZ/history/20250...
Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
Given that the engine telemetry shown on the broadcast showed the engines going out one by one over a period of some seconds, I could easily imagine some sort of catastrophic failure on a single engine that cascaded.
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Given the huge spread of the debris, it must have been a decent sized boom, no? I mean that's got to be 10's of miles wide in this video. https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115
the flight termination system is sort of a shaped charge that's designed to rupture the oxidizer and fuel tanks. Even if only a few % fuel remains, it'll be a big boom.
Video of the breakup - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
Looks like work of the Flight Termination System. Something measurable had to go very wrong.