Earlier they said they wanted to save it, but realized that when they shut the engines off at the eighty-five second mark and the capsule ejects for the test, the loss of aerodynamics would expose it to unsustainable atmospheric forces that would tear it apart. Must have been a fun statics equation. They had a pretty good breakdown of how the forces would tear it apart. Last I heard before the launch though, was they were trying to do a risk assessment on a nearby community. Wouldn't surprise me if they did induce a self-destruction more directly, in order to mitigate that hazard, but never heard anything of that being the case. Pretty awesome to see the progress they've made!
O it absolutely was a success. Losing the booster was going to happen whether it blew up mid flight or not. All of the landing equipment was stripped off it, so it was going in the drink regardless. I was was just commenting on how the destruction was initiated.
It was a success. The test was for the emergency eject capsule, to ensure astronaut safety in the event the rocket fails.
You’re spot on about the additional risk assessment. We went so far as to clear a larger area of the ocean, and since it’s whale season (right whales?), we had to make sure the area was clear of those as well.
I have to laugh at people crying about the environmental impact of the explosion... Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
Apparently a big chunk of the booster made a pretty big boom and mushroom cloud when it hit the ocean. Unfortunately I can't find any video of it.
I think it was the second stage that exploded when it hit the water. If you watch the video, you can see it separating from the booster before the booster popped. S2 was fully loaded with prop and hit the water at over 350 m/s.
Sounds like PR but I know that area is well instrumented with hydrophones and sonar due which could be used to listen for marine activity.
Got a name? I'm starting to think about life after SpaceX, and I was thinking about going the other direction with my career. It would be cool to talk shop. There are many folks that I know of that race bikes and/or cars or otherwise have some connection with the racing industry. For instance there are a few McLaren expats doing aero design.
I'm confused on each of the sites. Were all the failed pressure tests happening at the construction site not the launch pad site? Are all those new buildings located where SN4 is rolling from or closer to the launch site. Labpadre isn't too clear where the cameras are pointed
Nope, all the testing has been done at the launch pad. The main bulk of the buildings (of which they've added a bunch of over the last couple months) are all at the construction site, predominantly tanks at the launch pad. The current Lab stream is the pad.
