The failed booster had reflown 23 times also.. It just set the limit of reuses, considering they were planned for 10 or so reflights. Now they know what to look for to replace or look for after 20 or so reflights
who would've thought 7 years ago, that you can land a rocket 300+ times and that you no longer have a single rocket launch to space, but one that can do it 23 times ...
This is why I wait for the NSF reports. Forget the click bait articles with ignorant speculation. Analytical breakdowns and explanations are so refreshing in today's world. Keep it up crew! 👍✌️💨
Definitely agree, and recently that's been for everything happening in the space industry. Even people I used to trust are leaning into clickbait territory...
Here's a theory: Stacking of tolerances. Whenever you are pushing the margins, there is a remote possibility that all of your margins go the wrong way at the same time. Example: slightly faster landing velocity, slightly underperforming engine, rogue wave raises the deck of the recovery ship an extra meter, landing leg shock absorber fails, crush core manufacturing flaw means the core is too rigid and doesn't crush properly... all just barely inside their individual tolerances, but collectively, it's just too much for the booster to bear.
Yup, when I was being taught precision measurement and drafting they mentioned the same thing. All your measurements have to be from the same point or your tolerances could stack up and while each individual measurement is fine, the one on the end may be off by as many measurements as were taken. So if your tolerance is within 1/64" and you take 8 measurements from different datums, the last one may end up being off by as much as 8/64", or 1/8". Which is HUGE compared to 1/64.
Thanks Ryan and NSF team. It was a great launch stream and was fun to watch. B1062 is with B1058 now. And Space X said 1058 had older legs and the newer boosters had upgraded landing legs. So it always a possibility that the 1062 was a older version also.
This - 23 landings means its probably a older booster so older landing legs would make sense. Also means upgrading the landing legs for the fleet is probably in order, especially with FAA asking questions.
Ryan absolutely nails this Dasplanation (9.875). Thanks for the flight review with comparative videos and a deep dive into how this could have happened. NSF has always put other space news media outlets to shame. NO CLICK BAIT HERE. Just the facts.
The hydraulics snapped, spraying out hydraulics fluid which caught fire and the left over fuel exploded. Nothing major. SpaceX pushes everything to the limit to see what the limits are. Now they know. The Falcon 9 will eventually be retired anyways so... 23 launches for a booster is quite incredible.
It's kinda funny that they have become so successful at reuse that they are now freaked out when they lose a booster, especially when just a few years ago we lost them all and that was by design.
Spacex isn't freaked out, the FAA suddenly decided to ground their entire fleet for a failed landing (which was 100% a recovery issue and doesn't affect other flights according to Spacex)
Totally unrelated but 267 is the engine displacement of a small block V8 from a 1981 Chevrolet Malibu. 😅 I had one back in 2001 in Ottawa while I worked Smartwiring, prewiring fiber/structured wired smart homes with fiber op. in home audio distribution, upstream/downstream coaxial distribution, in home security system installation with in home lighting control thermostat control and other automated features, as well as central vacuum. The company I worked for had most of the new contracts in the Greater Ottawa Valley.
Great analysis Ryan, team. Clearly the failure cascaded somehow to cause a landing leg failure, causing the toppling. I agree the excess fire shows that the nozzle likely did contact the deck, causing a crack in the engine housing somewhere, leading to this failure as well. What caused both of those is the clincher. Degraded engine performance wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities, though there are other likely candidates as well. Clogged LOX filters, and so on... SpaceX likely already has the candidates on the board and is analyzing all data to see. They may wait until they can physically examine the remains of the booster before making their final determination and report to FAA.
Since it is the 23rd flight, and a flight leading number of flights, it might just be caution to make sure that wear and tear really wasn't the cause. Remember, SpaceX leads the investigation and reports to the FAA.
Thank you Ryan, Adrian, and Alex for going through going the various scenarios for this mishap. Now it's just wait and see what SpaceX determines as the cause.
23 launches is extremely impressive. That's slightly under 22 launches more than the average booster if we remove other Falcon 9 boosters from the statistics.
No one else is doing this! 267 successful launch & landings in a row is frankly amazing. SpaceX will get valuable data from this and make Falcon 9 even more reliable! They will probably just add a few items to the refurb checklist
I love how you guys reach out for comments. Down in the Australia I was waiting for Polaris Dawn but when it was scrubbed I didn't bother watching the 8-6 mission. I do regret making that choice!
I watched it I blame the giant alien hand for pushing the booster down on the Gravitas barge for the booster failure; it is just my theory thou, but it is plausible
@@isaktheswede Spacex will be done investigating and solve the issue in a couple days though and the bureaucrats won't allow them to fly for weeks probably like last time.
He seems to have an agenda for clicks. Sadly some other channels that support SpaceX do the same thing. I like NSF for the balanced and realistic coverage.
It us amazing that they can do this at all. I saw fire after the boost back burn was completed. Looks like a kerosene fuel leak and fire compromised the strut. Look at T + 6:50
@@s4-bf6vp I did not notice it on other landings, that makes sense but it looks much more prominent on this landing, also it looked like soot was being emitted toward the camera,
To me it looked like a possible 4th Option. Rocket landed but engines didn't cutoff as expected. Perhaps causing burn thru of a landing leg due to flame diverted by the deck.
Man it's kinda sad watching the various media strems out there, just how nuts people are going over this booster not making it. Like it wasn't on it's 23rd return...or that it damn near made it except for a relatively ( though ultimately destructive ) failure...yet if you check various media outlets ( professional or otherwise ) you'd think this was the end of SpaceX, that it was a massive failure that's the end of everything, that Elon is gonna have to go hide for the rest of his life, etc....
Even worse, reporting on this "failed landing" like all other rockets also get reused They seem to forget that SpaceX its reusability is fairly unique.
This will be interesting. Could be wear and tear, but who knows? Anyway, 22 successful landings for an orbital class booster is still quite impressive. Thanks for the report, Ryan!
Its pretty clear and I think you agree, a successful launch is the objective, being able to even use the falcon 9 again even once is an engineering amazement. It did very well more than 20 times. Amazing.
Great video. Not enough people online have been talking about the booster’s speed. I noticed it when I first saw the landing, Falcon landing’s are usually very soft and this was noticeably harder. I think that’s more likely than a leg failing.
As someone who has pretty good knowledge of the FAA's history, I'm sure the FAA needs some dental work, something like a a complete tooth removal. And don't say "but safety", look at Boeing.
Thanks nerds, excellent as always. When I watched the live landing it seemed to me it hit the deck faster than usual. Hopefully Spacex will let us know what they found.
Wondering if the atmospheric pressure was lower on the way down reducing the frictional deceleration and calling for more fueled deceleration and running them out of fuel. It wouldn't show up in the telemetry we see since we don't see fuel consumption.
An idea for @SpaceX : During the landing burn, clearly the exhaust flames override thee autodarkening circuits of the camera, so in effect we are blinded visually. To help with this, I know that lasers are used to scan objects to record minute details. Granted, those objects are at rest, but speed is the lasers' forte, and if combined with an adequate computer recording system and very fast scan rate (perhaps increased by more lasers, each scanning a segment of the area) we should be able to get a clear image of what is happening in the "zone of fire". I'm not an engineer or anything, this is just a concept for whoever wants to develop it.
Came to the area on vacation to see Polaris Dawn but when it was delayed I compromised and watched what was supposed to be a routine Starlink launch. Couldn't have been further from routine haha
The landing failure is worthy of SpaceX's study but not worthy of the FAA's hold on launches of Falcon 9. It was an old booster whose failure someday was expected. No harm, no foul. I am quite sure SpaceX wants to know why it happened but does the FAA have to shut down SpaceX every time an old booster gives up the ghost? I think there is some politic-ing going on here and politics should have no place in the FAA.
@@richardlighthill3228 rating is for a design, not individual hardware compenents. SpaceX can say they'll only fly humans on a new booster if they want, but if there is any hint of an issue with a Merlin 1D the FAA are going to step in until it's cleared.
Since it is the 23rd flight, and a flight leading number of flights, it might just be caution to make sure that wear and tear really wasn't the cause. Remember, SpaceX leads the investigation and reports to the FAA. Political conspiracy theories need not apply.
Since it is the 23rd flight, and a flight leading number of flights, it might just be caution to make sure that wear and tear really wasn't the cause. Remember, SpaceX leads the investigation and reports to the FAA.
Since it is the 23rd flight, and a flight leading number of flights, it might just be caution to make sure that wear and tear really wasn't the cause. Remember, SpaceX leads the investigation and reports to the FAA. If the booster is still on ASOG, they can get their hands on the hardware too.
Keep in mind the altitude of the ocean surface is constantly changing. It is also possible the ship was rising on a swell/wave as the rocket had targetted a previous but lower surface altitude. This would result in a premature landing at a much higher velocity.
That was the core... how many flights had that Merlin seen? And other respective parts that may/may-not be recycled/remanufactured. Guess thats up to the after-action team... and is in the records... Right Elon?
Since it is the 23rd flight, and a flight leading number of flights, it might just be caution to make sure that wear and tear really wasn't the cause. Remember, SpaceX leads the investigation and reports to the FAA.
Fun fact: The majority of Falcon 9 launches have taken place after December 16, 2022, when the 183rd Falcon 9 launch occurred. Today, 367 F9 launches have happened in total.
Great report and thorough analysis by Ryan! 23 full cycles on any launch system is unheard of. SpaceX, regardless of how you feel about Elon, has done remarkable work and brought reusable space launch systems to the forefront of space exploration culture.
Challenger had 10 flights, before a booster failure doomed it. Endeavour flew 25 flights. Columbia flew 28 flights before a debris hit doomed it. Atlantis had 33 flights and suffered a debris hit similar to Columbia. But it was over an aluminum mounting plate for an antenna, so the wing did not burn through (STS-27). Discovery had 39 missions.
If you slow the playback speed down to 0.25, you can clearly determine that Ryan is an alien from his voice. And playing it backward shows that he is John Lennon reincarnated.
