The problem yesterday appears to have been a leaky 300mm/12inch cryo flex line in the SQD (ship quick disconnect) umbilical. A crew of workers scrambled furiously all night to replace it, and today's launch appears to be back on track.
Road closed and pad clear.
Line chill underway. (They cool down the cryo-pipes so that propellant doesn't boil flowing through them.)
Edit - T-0 time pushed back 15 minutes
Edit - T-0 time now 7:00 PM CDT - appears to be weather related, storm cells and lightning in the vicinity
Edit - Go for propellant load
Edit - SpaceX says 70% chance of weather violation
Edit - T-30 minutes - frost is visible
Edit - T-5 minutes
Edit - Propellant load complete
Edit - Red on the range for weather - planned hold at T-40 seconds
Edit - SCRUB - anvil clouds in the vicinity
Weather might be bad Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday might be better.
The tank farm is spooling up.
Cryo pipe chilling is underway
Weather 55% favorable
Go for propellant load
T - 30 minutes - countdown proceeding
Weather much better than yesterday
T - 10 minutes - Vehicle, ground systems, weather and range are all green
Good lift off
All engines running
good stage sep
good booster return and simulated engine-out controlled splashdown
SECO - second stage engine shutdown
The cargo bay door opened!
All Starlink simulators successfully deployed!
In-space relight test good
Reentry underway
First serious problem - part of the engine skirt just blew off during reentry - that's where they intentionally left some tiles off for test
Getting aft flap burn-through. Trailing edge of the flap is glowing and ragged.
Starship is subsonic and still under control - entering its belly flop
Flip - n - burn!
Soft landing in the Indian Ocean right by the floating camera (powered by Starlink)!
Toppled over and exploded
Initial assessment: While there were issues, they achieved all of their test objectives! The honor of the Version.2 ships is convincingly restored by 37's heroic performance!
Mauricio was up in his plane (right outside the temporary flight restriction, he's careful about that) and caught the launch from the air. He actually live-streamed it! (RGV Aerial Photography photo)
![[Image: GzUg5U2WUAIm8Kw?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GzUg5U2WUAIm8Kw?format=jpg&name=large)
Passing through the speed of sound on ascent. Photo by Andrew McCarthy
![[Image: GzUSFw7XgAAwLEo?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GzUSFw7XgAAwLEo?format=jpg&name=large)
The "Pez-dispenser" ejecting the Starlink simulaters in space. From the SpaceX feed.
![[Image: GzUalgsWIAElbYk?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GzUalgsWIAElbYk?format=jpg&name=large)
Reentry. Screenshot from the SpaceX feed
![[Image: GzUXidVXgAAontg?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GzUXidVXgAAontg?format=jpg&name=large)
The rear flap with its trailing edge coming apart and some burn-through at the hinge. (Screenshot from the SpaceX feed.)
![[Image: GzUtTCVXEAAsQeR?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GzUtTCVXEAAsQeR?format=jpg&name=large)
View of what I believe is the heat shield side of the ship landing in the Indian Ocean. Pretty cooked, definitely not immediately reflyable. (There's LOTS of discussion on the internet about why it turned orange.) Screenshot from the SpaceX feed.
![[Image: GzUkKCsWAAAw_CR?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GzUkKCsWAAAw_CR?format=jpg&name=large)
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
I almost forgot what one of those landings in the ocean looked like, it has been so long. And accurately right beside the lone buoy with a camera.
Some speculations about the orange color from ashtorak @StarbaseSim on X
https://x.com/StarbaseSim/status/1960647424550052090
When I was working at KIT, we were testing composite materials made of a copper matrix infused with tungsten fibers as part of plasma facing components in a fusion reactor...
For commissioning tests of the electron beam heating device, we used a not actively cooled sample block of this material with a tungsten plate on top and heated it up pretty well.
...Some of the copper melted and evaporated.
Since you need vacuum for the electron beam gun, the vapors have been nicely deposited in a thin orange layer on all the surfaces.
The metallic test tiles on Starship might contain substantial amounts of copper in a similar sort of composite and this should provide more than enough material to coat half of the heat shield just from a handful of tiles.
Regarding the white nose cone: This might be deposits from evaporated steel since the nose might have seen more heating and then the diffuse reflection of the sun on the differently curved surface could make it look like this.
This is all heavy speculation of course!
There seem to be little things zipping around in the cargo bay .. probably not insects .. any ideas? Even entering the atmosphere at 20,000 kph there seem to be things drifting around quite slowly.