BFR Developments

Humans for scale...

(Photo by S.E. Robinson)

(Photo by Mauricio of RGV Aerial Photography)

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/s-sghGA6cdc

Launch time has been pushed back to 6 PM Central

Update Launch has been pushed back again to 6:30 PM Central

Go for propellant load

Booster prop load about 40%, ship about 55-60%

T-15 minutes

T-5 minutes - prop load ~95%

Oh well... they kept counting down to last few seconds, I was getting all excited, and computers tripped and recycled to a T-40 second hold. That happened some six times, before they declared a scrub.

Elon says:

"The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.

If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow at 5:30 CT."

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2057609682865254695

The Ship Quick Disconnect arm is supposed to swing away from the ship. Apparently it refused to.

Today Mauricio (of RGV Aerial Photography) was up in a Cessna, hoping to capture photos and video of the launch. And he reported that two F-5 jet fighters that appeared to be painted like Jared Isaacman's passed him in the sky, headed for Brownsville airport.

And two of Jared's jets did indeed take off from Titusville Florida headed for south Texas.

Sadly, Jared wrote this on X:

"I wish I could tell you it was me flying in with the F-5. That is one of my buddies positioning the jet. Unfortunately, I am going to have to watch from NASA HQ. Too much work to do to make it to Starbase today."

https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2057593613551386858

(This isn't Mauricio's photo. The jets were a lot further away when they passed him.)

Nice paint jobs.

They worked frantically throughout the night and the problem with the SQD arm is resolved. Flight 12 is on again for 5:30 PM Central.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/BiLe0i8pShY

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/bV_caXpi6WE

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/U4alF1JasLo

Propellant loading underway!

Green range, countdown is proceeding on schedule.

T-1 minute, everything going well.

Wow, a lot of things happening at once:

Good liftoff.

Good stage separation.

Booster boost back was wonky and seemed to end too quick.

Booster came in hot and they attempted a landing burn in the Gulf and it seemed to come down really hard in the water.

Ship 39 lost one of its raptor vacuum engines on ascent, so they tried an engine-out orbital insertion. Apparently they achieved sufficient velocity and they sound satisfied.

The Starlink pez-dispenser appears to work well. They got some extraordinary video from one of the dummy Starlink satellites leaving the cargo bay.

Ship 39 survived reentry like a champ, survived some flap loading tests and performed a banking turn similar to what it will have to do when it arrives for a catch.

And it soft landed in the intended location, where once it was in the Indian ocean it toppled over and exploded.

Didn't expect the cheering for Starship exploding on landing.

Very sad. Overall I thought it looked like it would be good enough for launching inanimate objects into low earth orbit but not for sending humans into deep space within the near future. With moon landings planned for the near future .. I don't know where that leaves SpaceX.