SpaceX's New Starship Upgrade Puts On Amazing Show As Space Debris

[@siciloliveri]

Hi Scott! European Space Engineer here! As part of the French space law we have the requirement to fragment any rocket stage falling back to earth if there is still any (solid or liquid) propellant in them. The goals are 2: (1) to avoid any propellant detonation during impact on ground, and (2) smaller debris have smaller kinetic energy hence are less dangerous. Regarding the risk of collision with aircrafts, the flight safety corridor is determined considering many many degraded scenarios. Also, the neutralisation is performed as low as possible to avoid spreading debris over a large area. EDIT: (3) neutralising also allows to ensure that all propulsion is stopped (in case you still have a doubt), thus ensuring that rest of the flight is ballistic. If there is some propulsion left, the stage could deviate a bit still and the final debris could be even further from the flight path, increasing the risk of falling on some aircraft. With a ballistic trajectory, it’s easier to identify where debris will fall and which aircraft to divert (I.e. the one in vicinity of the flight path).

[@mariolafrance5806]

Exactly what I thought !!! No of course, just kidding. Thanks for the explanation !

[@RichMiniön-r2m]

sure they have smaller kinetic energies but starship was projected to impact the ocean, it doesn't matter how large the kinetic energy is if it is impacting a body of water...

[@benkai09]

Thats great insite! In this case would it have been better to reenter the atmosphere first then make it go bang? Assuming communication hadn't been lost after telemetry was cut to the stream?

[@calebarmahk6984]

​@@benkai09 That's the problem. If you lose telemetry you've probably also lost the ability to send commands from the ground. Provisions to activate or not activate the self destruct (or flight termination system if you prefer) have to be coded in advance anticipating a loss of comms.

[@JonBrase]

Regarding (1), for an ocean impact fire risk is minimal as water is a great heatsink, plus SpaceX hardware burns methane+LOX, so there's minimal toxicity risk to the environment from the fuel (as opposed to something like a UDMH+N2O4 booster): LOX and Methane are both fairly nontoxic, both will tend to disperse into the atmosphere as they aren't liquid at ambient temperature (so what toxicity methane does have won't poison many fish), and on the off chance they do burn on impact, they'll go to H2O + CO2, which are pretty much harmless. As to (2), once you're past the apex of your trajectory, "as low as possible" becomes "as late as possible", which means that if your propellant is nontoxic and the impact point is over water, you really do have to consider the possibility that holding fire on range safety entirely is the best course of action.

[@craig7350]

The nickle and chrome in the stainless steel really ads some nice colors to that Starship re-entry.

[@LoanwordEggcorn]

The gold is the stainless steel body and the green is the Inconel engines burning, respectively.

[@stevegredell1123]

​@@LoanwordEggcorn green would be the copper jacket of the combustion chamber, I don't think Inconel burns green.

[@rosaliebent4833]

're-entry' is a term reserved for returning in one piece. This is just an epic failure.

[@Argosh]

​@@rosaliebent4833reentry is a technical term describing the atmospheric entry of an object returning from space. It does not have any implications on the success of the maneuver. Columbia broke up during reentry. MIR was destroyed during reentry.

[@zchris13]

@@rosaliebent4833 re-entry is whenever anything falls back into the atmosphere. they did not want it in so many pieces or so soon but it is a reentry

[@mortis4321]

No fluff just straight to the point explaining the whole launch which i sadly missed watching live. Scott is by far the best space commentator on the platform.

[@davidlabedz2046]

Agree!

[@ike621]

Welcome to my reply where I'm going to use as many words as I can to drag out the view time but first a look at our metrics and a word for our sponsors... Thank you for getting in, giving real information, and flying safe.

[@xxdesertstorm]

President Elon likes to hide info

[@daasdingo]

"I'm sorry that you had to watch all that vertical video, but its what the Kids seem to like these days" Scott speaking the truth, this is an abomination that we should fight ;-)

[@bellissimo4520]

I feel like todays kids can't be bothered to turn their phone by 90 degrees. Too much effort. It's sad.

[@ScienceChap]

It should be illegal. I'm going to start a petition.

[@paulmoir4452]

@@bellissimo4520 Can't fight kids: they have way more time and way more energy than you or I do. This has always been true.

[@P1XeLIsNotALittleSquare]

Imagine watching vertical video on a 32:9 monitor...

[@tangydiesel1886]

The bad part is that some phone cameras film wide in vertical and then go upright when turned sideways. Still not use to it on my phone, and it's apparently not a setting that can be changed.

[@solandri69]

8:59 The difference in apparent speed between fragments closer to us vs further away from us gives this a really nice 3-dimensional feel that you normally don't get from 2D images on a screen.

[@JordonBeal]

1:07 You really have to appreciate when forces are so great that it makes steel flap around like it’s a bit of fabric.

[@robertblue4630]

Shitty design/assembly not "great forces."

[@harrymacdonald858]

IT'S A CARTOON

[@NihongoWakannai]

​@@robertblue4630 you're saying there are no great forces involved in a rocket launch?

[@C21H27NO-atj]

😮

[@davidg3944]

@@harrymacdonald858 If so, are you Heckle or Jeckle?

[@Randelia]

Yes yes. The Manley Analysis is here already. Entertaining and objective.

[@JZsBFF]

The fact that his objectivity needs to be noted, is all telling for the current political climate.

[@Gunni1972]

@@JZsBFF Yeah, the usual "Didn't go too well for them" if similar things happen to chinese vehicles has to be reevaluated. But hey, it's just Tax-Dollars or Tax-Yuan anyway.

[@NeonVisual]

Manalysis.

[@ronald3836]

Now I am waiting for the Girley version.

[@pfilippone]

Manly yes but I like it too! (Irish Spring Soap advert reference)

[@mc-zy7ju]

Pressure in excess of vent capacity is my new favorite euphemism for explosion.

[@Cider4144]

....leading to rapid unscheduled disassembly.

[@meow33_33]

It's not a euphemism for that though, the explosion is a separate event from the "pressure in excess of vent capacity". The story here is that the pressure build-up led to a fire, the fire led to a loss of control. The loss of control led to a deviation from the intended flight path/profile, which eventually led to an explosion - either from aerodynamic forces or from the FTS. I guess technically explosions _are_ fires, albeit very fast ones. From that perspective it seems there were two fires - first a slow one caused (or allowed) by the pressure build-up, and later a fast one caused by something else.

[@JonBrase]

"Pressure in excess of vent capacity" is my existing euphemism for "shouldn't have eaten at Taco Bell, now I've got cramps".

[@maxwellquebec8675]

Can't we just say it blew the f-ck up?

[@vintagelady1]

A clear case of euphemization!

[@oldfrend]

a singularly marvelous video for such a short production time, scott. you are the hero scientist we need and deserve.

[@sntslilhlpr6601]

What a wholesome comment. May you not read the others.

[@HuntingTarg]

🤔... "hero scientist"... Do you mean Scott Manley is our IRL Gordon Freeman?!! 😆😁

[@witchdoctor6502]

I love that we can always count on Scott Manley to make an after action report, when something goes wrong in space flight - thank you. Hopefully the issue is minor and we get flight 8 soon, for flight 7 we at least got a very expensive firework and booster catch.

[@boringusername792]

I suspect the paperwork will take longer than the hardware fixes

[@Pranav_Bhamidipati]

@@boringusername792 This should definitely require a mishap investigation and conversations must be had about having larger exclusion zones as a contingency.

[@Kaiten-uk8gd]

Ngl, that Starship debris trail reminded me of Space Shuttle Columbia

[@12pentaborane]

I was a bit horrified.

[@AsteroidWrangler]

Honestly, I don't remember Columbia as being anywhere near as colorful. My dad and I were trying to watch reentry that morning, because it wasn't often that it would pass that close to us. It was far enough north of us that it wasn't super distinct, but it was mostly all white-yellow sparks. Still get chills remembering that moment. At least with Starship destructive tests, there hasn't been that sort of loss of life. "Go fast and break stuff" engineering only works when lives aren't on the line.

[@anthonylynn1969]

That many changes its one thing after another failure just chasing their tail now😢

[@sfguzmani]

That's the reason failure like this are so important early on the development. You don't want that to happen with Astronauts onboard. Test flights without failure are not ideal anyway, you want the maximum number of different failures when doing a test flight.

[@TomatOgorodow]

​@@sfguzmaniI don't even want this to happen with payload onboard :(

[@MichaelSTaylor]

Musk and Bezos said earlier in a joint news conference, "Put together our missions were perfect today" Too bad this didn't actually happen, except that starship's booster took off and landed while new glenn's didn't, and new glenn's second stage went to orbit while starship's didn't. A memorable day in the history of space flight.

[@bosoerjadi2838]

Was New Glenn's booster supposed to land?

[@reardenbentley9622]

@@bosoerjadi2838it was a secondary goal of their mission. they attempted the booster landing, but it wasn’t necessary to the success of the mission.

[@jacoblf]

@@bosoerjadi2838yes, on BO's landing barge named after Bezos' mom. stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, between CapeCanaveral & Bermuda.

[@Coyote27981]

​@@bosoerjadi2838yes, but they found out that orbital velocity landings are harder than hopping... Who would have though 😂

[@Casey093]

We can be so happy to have 2 companies rivaling each other like this.

[@Brainstormer_Industires]

Hopefully the boom was the FTS. That makes the failure much simpler. Fuel leak, propulsion failure, trajectory outside of mission parameters, FTS activates. A LOT less worrisome than "it randomly exploded and we don't know why"

[@duviworthing]

If they try hard enough they could perfect a 100% failure rate as long as the tax payer is willing to continue funding Musk's vanity project.

[@thulyblu5486]

Makes me wonder when there are passengers on board will there also be an FTS? That would scare me personally.

[@wolffang489]

​@@thulyblu5486Yet again why there needs to be an ejection system. Manual FTS and a bailout option for crew. Of course once in space that stuff can be disabled.

[@Lanka0Kera]

@@thulyblu5486 I'd presume there will be. If you lose control of the thing when it's coming down, FTS would be safer than try to guess where it'll crash. Crew may be fewer losses than spaceship crashing into an apartment block middle of a random city somewhere.

[@tomblack458]

I imagine after losing the last of all three vectorable raptors the fts immediately triggered for obvious reasons

[@emberthecatgirl8796]

14:13 You definitely don’t want that, because without a flight termination, the uncontrolled control surfaces could push it off-course, while it’s unlikely for the spacecraft to maintain structural integrity before it turns into god’s greatest shotgun. So they traded off a smaller affected area for a more predictable affected area.

[@bewilderbeestie]

It might not be uncontrollable, though --- if there's enough battery and structural integrity to use the flaps to steer the vehicle down through reentry, then that's a plausible reason to _not_ trigger the FTS even if it leaves its designated corridor. It would be complicated to do, as it would all have to happen autonomously; the onboard software would need to try and assess how badly things are going wrong, select a safe target and aim for it, and having worked with computers for years I'm not sure I'd trust one to do that right!

[@TwoTreesStudio]

This was not an RSO-directed flight termination. This was a complete loss of control that caused serious danger to civilian aircraft. Quit riding elmo rod.

[@maxwellquebec8675]

@@TwoTreesStudio Danger to people on the ground, as well. The fact the FAA approved this flight corridor in the first place tells me that they were already completely bought off by SpaceX and all of their useless handslaps were just a show for those few gullible rubes who still believe there's any good left in the world.

[@RetiredEE]

Wouldn't a nice compact range safety nuke pretty much annihilate everything? No messy debris hurtling earthward. Sure, crew & pax in nearby aircraft might need those B-52-like reflective curtains or possibly welding goggles, and we might lose some lights and electronics from the pulse, but it would make a glorious display, and remind Canada, Greenland and Panama who is really in charge 🙂

[@billyswong]

@@bewilderbeestie But the telemetry/communication has been lost this time. So it is not safe for the space ship to further auto-steer itself.

[@Cipher00007]

Hey Scott, just want to say that your content is an absolute breath of fresh air due to it being completely unbiased, unlike the cesspool that is Twitter. Looking forward to ur next vid!!

[@JeffGeerling]

Some fireworks to kick off the new year! Still an enjoyable launch and half-landing.

[@harrymacdonald858]

SO SPACE IS A CARTOON

[@SeanDSarcasm]

hence why this man will never bring man to the moon. Meanwhile "Failure is not an option"- Apollo missions

[@gorak9000]

Yup, very pretty fireworks at the taxpayer expense as we keep shoveling government contracts to oligarchs

[@olasek7972]

⁠​⁠@@gorak9000I somehow figure you don’t mind taxpayers paying trillions for government social programs

[@AM-tu1rc]

Until next time, you're Jeff Geerling

[@AsteroidWrangler]

Honestly, the debris was so beautiful on reentry in an aesthetic sense at least, a rainbow of metalic plasmas. Will be interesting to see future failure analysis.

[@sciteceng2hedz358]

That's what the dinosaurs said

[@floundericiouswa5694]

A billion dollar show

[@fcgHenden]

​@@sciteceng2hedz358Fk took a spit take at this. 😂

[@angryherbalgerbil]

Best firework of the New Year! 😂

[@coronalight77]

Thanks captain obvious. We saw the same vid and heard the same things. Do you have any original thoughts or observations that weren't mentioned or just the same one that echoed through the vid?

[@Yattayatta]

Thank you for always providing interesting and unbiased information regarding rocket launches and failures, it's why you are my main go to channel for updates.

[@SpaceMeister790]

The cameras shots both from and of the booster of this flight are some the best I’ve ever seen, you can see the atmosphere get denser clearly as it descends.

[@andreirachko]

This is probably the single aspect where SpaceX makes consistent progress. Video feed was non-existent at first, then very spotty and limited during their first few successful returns, but improved greatly overtime.

[@ksz8215]

Thank you for your knowledge and simple explanation! Love it

[@davidbird380]

love the way the booster sat there very gently swinging, after burning off all that energy the only energy left was for a gentle graceful swing. amazing

[@blakenaftel3637]

That got me thinking that they're going to eventually have to figure out a way to quickly arrest that motion. If it's a windy day, the motion won't necessarily stop on its own, and Booster is going to need to be perfectly vertical for the trip back down to stage 0.

[@pirminborer625]

Controlling such brutal forces and explosiveness with such a degree of precision has something poetic about it.

[@SanchoPanza-n4w]

The booster returning to earth intact is more exciting to me than the payload it launched.

[@P.J.McLaughlin]

Yeah, eventually one or both of those chopsticks is going to snap off from metal fatigue.

[@patsk8872]

With the catastrophic failures they're having, how long until the booster slams into the launch area at 1 km/s detonating all the fuel containers...

[@malendras]

Man, you are KILLING it today with the updates! Massive props for the really quick videos!

[@SpicyMelonYT]

Oh yeah I am definitely subscribing. You filled 17 minutes with ZERO fluff. You touched upon a lot of great points!

[@AthanImmortal]

I love Scott's presentation, he's been doing it for years too, if you ever want to look up some of his older breakdowns of launches, they're full of great technical analysis.

[@Anymal104]

Welcome to the club! lol

[@OCinneide]

Welcome! Been here 12 years and his content has been consistently good!

[@stiimuli]

If you're into space flight and related topics there is probably no better KZbin channel than this one

[@sonicsupersam7793]

you will not regret it!

[@Sonnell]

I think the methane leak was lot bigger than Elon tries to put it. If you see how fast the tank empties, this must have been a catastrophic damage to some large fuel line. Which is in itself not a bad news, perhaps just a pipe went loose or something, meaning, fixing it will be easy.

[@robertbackhaus8911]

He indicates that it was a pretty big leak - big enough to overwhelm vent capacity, which is pretty large. All the message says, at this early stage, is they saw high pressure in the ceiling area, which indicates a big leak. His message showed that they didn't yet know whether the leak was oxygen or methane. Pretty clear it is methane, based on the tank level graph on the webcast.

[@notanytimenow]

The sequence of the engines shutting down if the display can be trusted for that, could also give some clues to what happened. Since some of the engines still worked and it is known that there is one large pipe from fuel tanks to engine area, that component likely didn’t fail. They probably have some kind of hardware off from the main pipe that feeds into the turbos of engines, and some engines were still getting fuel when the leak begins. I would guess that one or more engines pump connected hardware failed catastrophically.

[@heinstein26]

That debris and the multiple contrails reminded me of something. RIP STS 107 Crew and Columbia. You will always be remembered. 💐💐💐💐💐💐💐.

[@personzorz]

Last time I was this early, KSP2 was exciting.

[@onurruzgar4635]

Same lol

[@archthearchvile]

Sad but true

[@vandermitch5146]

so you never Early ?! lol

[@Scorpionwincheater88]

What happened with ksp2? I was out

[@Saleca]

It was at ksp2 announcement?

[@jackprier7727]

Cool that they caught the booster, but I'm more a cheerleader for the pointy end where the people would go-

[@Salty_Balls]

Don't disregard the shaft so easy. The shaft does the work, the head gets the credit.😊

[@Replicant-by1eh]

Penile joke detected 🧐

[@mikehipperson]

@@Salty_Balls She said!

[@secularmonk5176]

Reusability is the key to economical space access. I don't care about people going up, per se. I want massive payloads that can carry robots and 3D printers, to establish space industry. (Yes, it will need to be safe enough to carry some skilled human operators, but I'm fine with the "oil platform" business model, as opposed to the "jet travel" model.)

[@MaticTheProto]

Nah. There‘s not going to be intelligent life in there, only elon fans

[@maf654321]

Unfortunate about Starship's fate, but wow it's wild that the insane booster catching procedure is already becoming taken for granted.

[@duviworthing]

2 captures of a scrap booster and 5 failures. Do you mean that we can take failure for granted?

[@TheStopwatchGod]

​@@duviworthing SpaceX didn't attempt a catch on the first four flights anyways There was no catch attempt for Flight 6 as the catch tower failed automated health checks, so it (the booster) instead made a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. So far, there have only been 2 attempts at a booster catch, and both were successful

[@unclestoma4699]

Tell everyone you know nothing about science and engineering without actually saying it

[@D_Maverick-b3b]

​@@duviworthing and what have you really built anywhere apart from criticisms?

[@duviworthing]

@@D_Maverick-b3b One doesn't need to be able to build anything to recognise abject failure

[@BaldurvanLew]

The transition between the "move fast and break stuff " mindset to the "slow, steady and safe" that is the standard in commercial aeronautics is going to be interesting to watch. I wonder how many toys will exit the pram in the process 😉

[@ToaArcan]

Yeah, it's going to be an interesting thing to watch. "Move fast and break stuff" is, at the very least, great for highly visible testing processes. You can see the work being done, it's very exciting, but that is _not_ how actually-operational aviation works, especially when there are customers involved. Caution and reliability are the aim of the game there.

[@duviworthing]

It's a good job it's only tax money funding this farce

[@HALLish-jl5mo]

I mean they've already done this, it's called Falcon 9.

[@boringusername792]

They kind of did it with Block 5 of Falcon 9 in order to fly crew. It's only had minor adjustments since then and usually only debuted with low-risk payloads. Starship will likely be similar. Once it's more mature then design will be finalised, flown many times and only received minor adjustments which will be tested on cargo first.

[@watcherzero5256]

Yeah look at Blue Origin, took its time but successfully made orbit on its first attempt, something Starship hasn't achieved after 13 Superheavy Boosters built. Apollo achieved Manned flight on its 7th launch, Mercury similarly achieved human flight on its 7th launch, the Space Shuttle achieved it on its 6th flight. At this point Musk is go slow and break stuff not go fast.

[@lexscarlet]

honestly this catch looked smoother than the first

[@sysbofh]

Looked like it to me too. Practice and all that... Really amazing.

[@csolomon8728]

I couldn't wait for this video! Thanks Scott. Fly Safe.

[@phoenixmercurous884]

Well between Starship and New Glenn we have 1 payload successfully delivered to orbit and 1 booster successfully landed. So if we combine the two into Star-Glenn we have a 100% successfully launch!

[@kentvesser9484]

But such a ship wouldn't have enough cargo space to carry those two egos. :)

[@marlonjormungand7845]

They should fuse.

[@fcgHenden]

@ Like what? Jefflon? 🤣

[@Dylius01]

Or 0%

[@rustandmagic]

@@Dylius01 Yes, kind of depends on what you combine ;)

[@Hoopaball]

It's pretty amazing that we can see some type of flammable gas venting out of the starboard aft hinge opening and then cascading engine failures that followed. The "vent event" theory is definitely plausible. Great summary once again Scott! Cheers

[@RayRoss-g2z]

Once again, the best and most detailed review of Starship 7's spectacular show. Bravo!

[@EdwinSteiner]

SpaceX will also be the first company to send a rocket back in time. From 2025's most expensive fireworks to 2024's crewed mission to Mars. Amazing!

[@slartibartfast1268]

And 2018's (?) crewed mission to the moon.

[@skraminc]

That separation and boostback shot was awesome. Best one yet

[@LouisDeer]

Thanks for the fast update!

[@lesliejames9404]

I get my space news from the man who flys safe, the king of the Kerbals, Scott Manley! Fly safe!

[@CharlesSnyder]

Always appreciate your post launch analysis. Thanks!😊

[@jayanspaliwal5907]

14:55 This type of entry is a MAJOR mishap. If elon says next month, we'll probably see the next flight no earlier than April. This will require extensive investigation as this kinda reminds about the chinese rockets that fall anywhere

[@SpaceXNerdTom]

2 months max, not gonna be April. Ship is too important to natl security, new administration incoming. I agree with everything Scott said, but it won't take 4 months to accomplish the investigation and changes to systems. I admit that Elons timeliness is optimistic rhetoric designed to expedite FAA process; however, I don't forsee FAA retaining jurisdiction over spaceflight after Jan. 20th. My guess is that the regulatory lead will be nasa consulting faa for any atmospheric activity below 100k ft.

[@Jaker788]

Technically all that matters with an investigation is the root cause find and solution. It seems like SpaceX already has a good idea towards root cause and a handful of proposals to implement.

[@Andy_T79]

The Chinese rockets are finished articles with payloads that fail because of quality issues.... SpaceX Starship is a development program launching development mules, that we are being allowed to watch in real time... if this happened in the 50s / 60s is would have been top secret and launched from a US military island in the middle of nowhere, just like they did with every other advanced system development of the time.... people didn't even know the 1957-68, A-12 Oxcart existed until 1989.

[@slartibartfast1268]

​@@Jaker788root cause: elon hubris

[@hangglidernerd]

very happy to hear you call out all the vertical videos.... when filming, turn your cellphones folks

[@ericpaul4575]

Except when you a filming something that fits vertically as is the case with the debris reentry.

[@Piraneous]

Such a bitter sweet launch! The excitement of the second successful catch of a sky scraper, followed by the heartbreak of a dramatic RUD. Total roller coaster.

[@TwoTreesStudio]

Elmo simps are thanking their lucky stars that they haven't killed anyone yet. And it does come down to pure luck. They'll be lucky if the FAA lets them fly again this year.

[@joeteichert6821]

It's sad that they didn't get to test so many things. They couldn't test the Pez dispenser, the catch hardware in re-entry, and the actively-cooled tiles to name a few.

[@amentco8445]

they likely weren't going to try to capture starship. booster capture was the only one.

[@jerinromeo8833]

@@amentco8445 I think he mention about the catch hardware in the starship not about the tower, like gimbling the engine to land softly on the calculated spot, same like flight 6. this time more accurate

[@wouter12wpp]

They were going to test if the hardpoints, that would be recuired for future landings, were able to survive reentry well enough.

[@andreirachko]

This thing was evidently a sloppy job; the next iteration will likely be better integrated, and knowing SpaceX will also have some additional new tech.

[@3800S1]

What a time to be alive and have access to such epic public and engineering footage! Not to mention the insanity of catching a skyscraper with basically chopsticks.

[@BMrider75]

Excellent analysis and assessment here Scott. As always 👍 Thanks.

[@brycedarnell7395]

List of things guaranteed: Excitement? Yep Success? Definitely not Giant firework show? Aye

[@ginbei711]

I would still called it at least half success since they catch the booster

[@sfguzmani]

Definitely not a success but failures like are so important in this early development. Too bad, the landing catch was overshadowed by the upper stage rud.

[@markeh1971]

Hi, failure leads to future success! Meanwhile enjoy the light show. Take care all and await the next launch. M.

[@wnekuu]

​@@markeh1971how many Saturn V exploded to get to the Moon? And it's 7th starship and he can't even get to the orbit with all the modern technology they couldn't even imagine in Apollo era.

[@alexb-mc4jo]

​@@wnekuu starship is a magnitude of an order more complex than the saturn v.

[@matthewrberning]

thank you for the recap! seeing that video of starship breaking up from the person in the plane was absolutely insane

[@roqua]

Twitter handle of said user recording from plane? Edit: I see @Surdys_ciencia posted views from a plane cockpit.

[@Lil_MrHype]

I think boost back was a bit shorter than flight 5 even with one engine missing, and it happens a few Kilometer lower, meaning top speed in the atmosphere was around 300km/h less than flight 5 thus less heating I would assume Edit: I totally forgot that V2 is heavier

[@omicael1]

Ship V2 is heavier than V1, so the booster didn't/couldn't go too far.

[@Lil_MrHype]

@omicael1 that makes sense, I forgot about that.

[@schmidtfjs]

Really nice analysis in such a short amount of time and with just generally available video. Very impressed. You’ve collected at least one more subscriber!

[@AccAkut1987]

That shot following 4:42 just goes so hard. All those shockwaves, the compression heating between the nozzles, the clouds shifting between states as the ship passes. Thats like one of those that CG artists will use as reference material going forward.

[@adriancarreno3270]

I've never clicked on a video this fast 😅

[@robertherndon4351]

Dunno about the FTS; SpaceX will have that data. But StarShip would have been tumbling before it lost telemetry, so it's likely it would have disassembled itself violently once it got into thickish air.

[@robertbackhaus8911]

That depends on how it was programmed, and whether the tanks were still pressurized to provide attitude control. And if that last engine was shut down. If it had attitude control so it could keep itself shield first in the extreme upper atmosphere, it could have used its flaps in the high, mid and lower atmosphere to re-enter in a controlled manner.

[@wzDH106]

Yeah, as someone who frequently travels across that region, I would much prefer a single semi controllable large stainless steel object crossing flight paths as opposed to hundreds of smaller uncontrollable stainless steel pieces. This one gave me goosebumps.

[@christiannorf1680]

Absolutely. Somebody else commented that these things could steer off-course due to the aerodynamic surfaces. But in the middle of the ocean that would hardly matter I think. Basically it comes down to "terminate only if the projected touch down is less than x kilometers from land"

[@williamgodrie9885]

The thing is that the smaller bits are more predictable than the starship without communication and control surfaces pointing somewhere you don't know. The affected corridor would be larger without the termination system

[@Real28]

Yeah but they lost communication, so it wasn't semi controllable. It was completely uncontrolled and the only safe option is to nuke it.

[@yuGtahT]

Thanks for putting this all together!

[@techristopher8077]

A Very Well Done commentary and analysis on ITF-7. Indeed one of your best ones yet. TKY VM.

[@garryblaschka4930]

Wow that catch landing of the booster really is amazing.

[@lentztu]

Thanks for calling out how bad vertical video is 😂 (it really makes it hard to view stuff)

[@ToaArcan]

It'll be very interesting to see the collision between rapid iterative testing and "Yeah you actually have to do this shit safely, carefully, and reliably" if/when this thing makes it out of the prototype phase.

[@AnupomAG]

8:09 If you're on a plane ``Always Choose a window seat"

[@beaconofwierd1883]

So happy to see they caught the booster, I first thought everything had exploded when I heard it went bad, but this is just the hard part being hard, as expected.

[@pahtar7189]

Today Blue Origin had a test flight where the 1st stage worked, then after separation it failed but the 2nd stage performed well. Today SpaceX had a test flight where the 1st stage worked, then after separation it came back to land at the launch site but the 2nd state failed. Yes, Virginia. Space is hard.

[@VIJAYzk]

Everything about space and spaceflight is Beautiful and terrifying at the same time. i never though starship could be an amazing big budget aerial firworks show.

[@isaiahdebuck4097]

This starship launch was such a kerbal launch

[@expioreris]

yes. except it was not in sandbox mode. we payed for that.

[@ryancollyer2046]

​@expioreris Eh, kind of. We will pay 2.89 billion for Starship no matter how much money SpaceX uses to test it. Them blowing up a rocket doesn't cost any more to us.

[@Redact63Lluks]

​@@expiorerisNobody concerned about Elon getting gov bids actually pays more taxes than they get in welfare or a disability payment.

[@tuberroot1112]

great content and commentary as usual from Scott Manley. Always my goto source for immediate flight reports on Spaceship test flights.

[@randombr549]

Scott, I love the way your investigative mind works, man. Bravo!

[@phred196]

Well I'm comparing a rocket to the moon against a rocket to the moon. And I assure you that to the people who are going to fly on these Rockets it is absolutely an apples-to-apples comparison. We can't have guys blowing up on Rockets

[@tc-tm1my]

That's why they do regular testing

[@Kjgunn1111]

Not often I disagree with you Scott, the exclusion zone that came into effect once Starship exploded did its job - and prevented aircraft flying through the debris field - and the initiation of the FTS kept the debris within that designated zone. Disagree with you that FTS could have been delayed - as without controlled flight Starship could have gone outside this zone - it's a lifting body after all - not a ballistic projectile.

[@jackmchugh5597]

Ya we had an anomaly, that is why it's a "test" launch. Just think, just 40 yrs ago we were lucky if we saw a launch every two years, if that , we're launching two rockets within 24 hours.. Congratulations to Jeff and Elon along with their teams....

[@refindoazhar1507]

I know it's because they practically have blank check for everything, but apollo have quite a good launch cadence while being the largest rocket of its time.

[@slartibartfast1268]

​​@@refindoazhar1507not to mention they didn't blow up and actually made it to the moon and back. But there was no blank check. Had they failed the way starship has, it's questionable how long the program would have kept going. And even though they were successful, they were cancelled anyway by the mid 70s. Not seeing a "blank check" there.

[@davidblaauw1806]

Brilliant Scott! To the point, knowledgeable, your vids are by far the best !

[@matthewjamestaylorcom]

Great commantary and investigation as always, Scott 😎

[@Gregorius421]

0:13 "RUDer, spectacularly" - Scott doing Scott

[@owenwadders3689]

Surely you can buy fireworks that will do similar job as these rockets but at a fraction of the cost?

[@Raj-gr6dy]

I couldn't help but think of Kimi no Na Wa when I saw the RUD video.

[@SukacitaYeremia]

I'm gonna be disappointed if I don't see at least one edit of this with the Kimi no Na Wa theme

[@dettie1948]

Thanks for that Scott, the detail of your posts is real value for money, so informative, thanks again...

[@johnhufnagel]

as always, awesome work by Mr. Manley

[@LoanwordEggcorn]

Thanks for sharing. The gold is the stainless steel body and the green is the Inconel engines burning up on re-entry, after the Flight Termination System blew it all up. Edit: It looks like Raptor uses copper for regenerative cooling channels. I think that's what I was thinking of for the green. Inconel may not burn green, but copper could.

[@Eyepatchfilms]

Wow you have the video up already. Impressive!

[@xyzero1682]

We can kiss Elon's claim of "25 launches in 2025" goodbye now.

[@PDVism]

as welll as manned mission to the moon with Starship within a year or two as well as colonizing Mars within a decade

[@gorky_vk]

@@PDVism you can also notice that with every iteration Starship loose some of its cargo capacity as more and more stuff need to be added and in the end it will end up as glorified starlink launcher like many predicted long time ago.

[@HNedel]

@@gorky_vkthis is the second iteration and it lost some cargo space, the third will have the cargo space back. Are those the same people who predicted it would never fly off the pad? Or that the shockwaves from the launch would kill any life form in a 100 mile radius?

[@duviworthing]

Does anybody still believe any of the claims Musk makes. He's the most successful fabricator in history.

[@adamndirtyape]

The USA should not be relying on Musk for anything.

[@tracythorn2918]

A clear explanation of what happened. This is why I'm subscribed. Thank you!

[@m_chupon5131]

Thanks for the update, hadn't seen those clips with the actual explosion.

[@YESTERDAYMANSCIFI]

Thank you Scott

[@palmedor9916]

I love Spacex but when you need no bias opinion/real analysis, Dj Manley is the man. ✌🏾❤️

[@BaalsMistress]

Both Blue Origin and SpaceX had partially successful test launches. The world of space is getting definitely more exciting. Best wishes to both companies.

[@palmedor9916]

@ I agree, we are in a exiting time period of space exploration

[@GuillemPoy]

I think you didn't explain it in the video or I missed it: why did we lose telemetry before the FTS was triggered?

[@joeteichert6821]

I have the same question. Perhaps the fire from leaking propellant burned the communication wires, or caused a short-circuit?

[@lukezhang3017]

I don’t think FTS triggered, it blew itself up on its own accord

[@samuelgarrod8327]

We don't know because they lost telemetry. 🙄

[@richarddickjohnson516]

​@joeteichert6821 a loss of power to the communications system would make sense. That still leaves dozens of individual points of failure to consider though, especially since I'm sure there's redundancy in those systems. It could also be that the loss of the engines caused the ship to flip/roll uncontrollably which could lead to signal loss if the transceivers are directional in nature(idk for sure, but a steerable phased array antenna makes the most sense for long distance coms to starlink)

[@unitrader403]

@@lukezhang3017 you mean the FTS auto-triggered/self-activated right?

[@nickreeve9644]

Thank you Scott. Excellent analysis and reporting!

[@philipkudrna5643]

Sensational video from Scott as always! Thanks a lot!

[@whitescar2]

Imagine if this had been a NASA launch?

[@seeingeyegod]

So Imagine if NASA built Starship? Why am I doing this?

[@duviworthing]

Tax payer funded via NASA

[@kenpe1455]

Nasa can't build a shoebox anymore

[@CESmith]

A single rocket that took 10 years to complete and cost billions of dollars, yeah that would be a big failure. Not sure what we would think if NASA embraced the move fast and break things approach, but we don't live in that timeline.

[@slartibartfast1268]

​​@@kenpe1455that's what happens when your budget reduced to shoe strings. Get back to me when starship actually reaches orbit without blowing up, never mind going to the moon as was supposed to happen six years ago.

[@davidg3944]

Thanks, Scott. Great review of the Starship fireworks, and I always appreciate the enthusiastic commentary that stays mature, without the "Look at that! Oh, Ah!" prattling of some other channels. Please carry on. [I'd ask some others to make sure their baggage is properly stowed]

[@calvers01]

Thanks for your analysis and thoughts on improvements. All good stuff.

[@bigguywithdreads2097]

Thanks Scott for the fast and quick perspective I hope other who repeat what you clearly said 1st will credited you

[@Bulldog23636]

I know it’s a test flight for data. But I hope they reuse the booster. That would be huge

[@minibeefcake]

I understand the desire to have "maybe not trigger the FTS and see if starship can do the landing regime and steer itself to the water." But FTS is like the last line of "oh shit something has gone off the rail, abort now" panic button, I think the condition for it has to be kept as simple as possible because this last option cannot fail.

[@Coyote27981]

It is 1 full landing... Which is more than anyone else can say so still winning. A fully operational booster is such a game changer, that even if Starship were to be an impossibility in the future, an expendable 2nd stage with such a massive reusable 1st would still be a beast. Its sad the first Starship V2 failed so early on its flight. But i guess we got spoiled with so much success, that some forget that this is still a fast development process. New ship, new issues.

[@theobservarator6424]

Didn't their competitor actually get a payload into orbit without exploding?

[@Coyote27981]

​​@@theobservarator6424who are you referring to? Everyone else doing launching expendable stuff that wont land? I dont know anyone else in the "launching rockets and landing them back" business.

[@hierox4120]

A returning booster isn't really winning unless the primary mission is completed. If we were to compare the test flights this week, BO has more to celebrate compared to SpaceX. While BO may have lost the booster, its customers would be happy because they got what they paid for. Keep in mind, this is already the 7th test flight for SpaceX; Starship V2 was supposed to be a refined and improved version of V1. If it were to be put bluntly: A returning vehicle without completing the primary mission is merely reducing the costs of compensation.

[@refindoazhar1507]

​@@theobservarator6424by their competitor you mean Falcon 9? That's the vehicle that put 80% of the mass to orbit last year.

[@theobservarator6424]

@Coyote27981 The point of this stuff is getting things into orbit for customers. Only one customer was satisfied.

[@w13rdguy]

Well worth the wait. Thanks, Scott Manley!

[@MCsCreations]

Fascinating! Thanks, Scott! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@PigeonsandCapybaras]

10:27 the concept of Rockets flying people REGULARLY around the world terrifies me, yes it’s faster, but think about the pollution, right now not much rocketry happens, but hundreds of daily launches could create unimaginable space junk and damage the ozone layer very fast

[@wouter12wpp]

The exhoust consists of carbondioxide and water, no ozone is getting depleted because of that. Low Earth Orbit(LEO) junk wil burn up in the atmosphere in at most a couple of decades. Junk beyond this wil stay in orbit much longer though. There is even a graveyard orbit in which spacecraft neuralize themselves to cause no harm to operational spacecraft. Just remember: space is vast, spacejunk is nowhere near posing a significant risk to spacecraft. Pollution wise, just CO2 and water. (unless a rocket breaks up) the amount of added CO2 by rockets is very insignificant to other processes on earth even if the launch cadence were to increase to multiple a day.

[@sonicsupersam7793]

in theory, spacex will use the sabatier process to produce their methane once starship flights become regular. this essentially makes the flights themselves carbon zero, as all the co2 released by the rocket will be used up again in the production of methane for another flight. and of course, with starship being fully reusable we can hope there would be no space junk left in orbit from a flight. but im not sure the progress of spacex producing their own methane at the moment.

[@owenwadders3689]

Dont worry they are never up long enough to cause much pollution!! The ground will suffer more

[@Jaker788]

​@@sonicsupersam7793That's not really in the plans for Earth operation and it's much more expensive than market natural gas. It's just a ISRU proposal for Mars

[@sonicsupersam7793]

@ yeah, i don't really see it becoming a thing unfortunately

[@keilerbie7469]

1:57 Gulf of America*

[@artic9514]

You beat me to it

[@JustherefortheLOLZ]

Makes me laugh. I haven’t started calling things their new names in at least 30 years. Ask any New Yorker if they drive over the Tappan Zee Bridge or the Mario M. Cuomo bridge? We still don’t use the reference “Southern Ocean”. It’ll be the “Gulf” forever.

[@arthurlau98]

The 1st Mars city shall be named Elonlanding.

[@leedz75]

09:26 How do flat earthers explain this??!?!?!?!?

[@andirago]

They would say it has hit the ceiling or some shit😂 (heard them say it before)

[@maliq4]

Its a huge conspiracy and everyone but them is in on it. Tee hee.

[@meatsak-v7s]

Density. Lol

[@Jules_73]

They’ll falsely explain it away. There’s really something wrong with that crowd.

[@bartekes8852]

Your first 3 words allowed me to feel your enthusiasm already. Fly safe!😊

[@W8iHav2P]

I'd love to see this thing in person. First, the size is hard for me to comprehend. Second, the booster landing looks so impossible it seems almost like CGI 😮

[@johnlucas6683]

Yeah, that booster is huge! There is a clip of a man walking under and then the camera zooms out to get the booster inside the frame and the man is hard to see. This is the 2nd succesfull booster landing on the "chopsticks". Amazing, definitely.

[@abrahamvivas9540]

SpaceX gifting us with another beautiful Kerbal Space Program experience