At least 4 engines failed during the early ascent. It never got the altitude or velocity it needed to have by stage separate.
But a victory nonetheless. Just getting into the air at all was a win.
Sometimes failure is the only route to success.
1 Like
Did see a video of Musk while back that his biggest concern was exploding on ground and ruining the launch pad and all itâs infrastructure.
Not sure about the rocket engines sinceâŚI believe they factors in that 3 of engines failures during launch.
Either way it clearly main booster didnât separate as it was suppose to do.
That FOX webpage had a blocked Trojan on my tablet.
I have never heard a control room cheer so loud after a rocket exploded in the atmosphere. 
1 Like
Thatâs an unfortunate setback.
But I love that euphemism. ⌠âunscheduled disassembly.â 
1 Like
Yeah. That seemed a bit unusual.
They where happy that it got off the launch pad.
They were saying before launch that everything after initial takeoff was bonus. It wasnât expected to complete its mission, but hoped for, almost did but kept on spinning when it was only supposed to make one spin.
Ya I donât get the flip.
I thought starship was supposed to separate first then heavy booster flip for decent but when I was watching it sounded like it was supposed to be a single flip then separation.
Of course once it kept flipping and started to tumble all bets were off.
WW
Not sure either. I heard two stories as to what the mission was, takeoff, flip, separate, land in gulf and takeoff, flip, separate, go around the earth, land in gulf. They got a bunch of mass in the air, though, so thatâs something.
Apparently. They must have expected it to fail much sooner. I wonder if they had an office pool going.
It failed to separate from main booster rocket. It did reach 127 thousand ft.
I know they keep saying couple of 33 engines failed but the rocket was designed with that in mind.
But Iâm sure we will know more in coming days. Itâs MuskâŚnot our government.
A roundup of recent Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions.
April 15th, Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Launch Complex 4E carrying the Transporter-7 rideshare mission to sun synchronous orbit. The mission was successful with a successful booster landing at Vandenberg.
April 19th, Falcon 9 from CCSFS SLC-40 carrying Starlink Group 6-2 to low Earth orbit. The mission was successful with a successful booster drone ship landing.
April 27th, Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Launch Complex 4E carrying Starlink Group 3-5 to sun synchronous orbit. The mission was successful with a successful booster drone ship landing.
April 28th, Falcon 9 from CCSFS SLC-40 carrying the O3b mPOWER 3 & 4 to medium Earth orbit. The mission was successful with a successful booster drone ship landing.
April 30th, Falcon Heavy from KSC LC-39A carrying the ViaSat-3 Americans (primary payload), Aurora 4A (Arcturus) (rideshare) and G-Space 1 (aka Nusantara-H1-A) (rideshare), all to geostationary orbit. Currently at 1 hour and 30 minutes into the mission. The boost phase was nominal as was the 1st and 2nd burns of the Merlin Vacuum Engine second stage. Currently in a 4 hour coast phase which will end with 3rd (final) burn of the m-vac engine, followed by payload deployment. Note that both the center core booster and both side boosters were deliberately expended due to the performance requirements for this mission.
Will update this upon mission completion tonight.
Counting tonightâs mission, there have been 29 Falcon flights this year so far, 27 Falcon 9 and 2 Falcon Heavy. Assuming tonightâs mission ends successfully, it will continue 100% success for the year.
Note that I am talking about Falcon rockets ONLY, not Starship, which is experimental only at this point anyhow. 
7 launches in April total, 6 Falcon 9 and 1 Falcon Heavy, so SpaceX has been maintaining a very healthy pace.
In contrast, in the 5 year and 2 week period from April 15, 2018 to today, ULA has launched 29 missions.
Basically, SpaceX has launched, in 4 months, the same number of missions as ULA in over 5 years.
Speaking of ULA, they better get their upgraded Centaur figured out and FAST. They are looking at serious trouble if they donât. And SpaceX can pretty much do ANYTHING that ULA can, Atlas, Delta or Vulcan. The upgraded Centaur will give them a modest edge over SpaceX in the extreme heavy satellite department, but those kind of missions are few and far between.
For all intents and purposes, SpaceX is the King of Space.
Just wait until the environazis hear about this âŚ
Actually, SpaceX is getting a nastygram from the FAA over the explosion. I am sure that will bother he-who-shall-not-be-named not at all.
Just had a successful third burn of the m-vac for tonightâs mission. Now in geostationary orbit at 34,621 kilometers. ViaSat deploy is in about 7 minutes from now.
Successful deployment of the ViaSat.
Over the next 13 minutes, the two rideshares will deploy as well.
Both rideshares have deployed, so tonightâs mission was a 100% success.
