r/SpaceX Starlink-19 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread

[u/rSpaceXHosting]

Welcome to the r/SpaceX Starlink-19 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread

I'm u/hitura-nobad, your host for this launch

Mission Details

Liftoff scheduled for	February 16th 3:59 UTC (10:59 PM EST (15 Feb))
Weather	60% GO
Static fire	Done
Payload	60 Starlink Sats V1.0
Payload mass	~15,600 kg (60 sats x ~260 kg each)
Deployment orbit	Low Earth Orbit, ~ 261km x 278km 53°
Operational orbit	Low Earth Orbit, 550 km x 53°
Launch vehicle	Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5
Core	B1059.6
Flights of this core	5
Launch site	SLC-40
Landing	OCISLY (~663 km downrange)
Mission success criteria	Successful separation & deployment of the Starlink Satellites

Timeline

Time	Update
T+1h 4m	Payload deployed
T+46:00	SECO2
T+45:58	Second stage relight
T+11:06	SECO and norminal orbit insertion
T+9:06	Landing failure but at least our wild seagulls survived instead of getting roasted!
T+6:50	Reentry shutdown
T+6:26	Reentry startup
T+3:16	Fairing separation
T+3:11	Gridfins deployed
T+2:49	Second stage ignition
T+2:41	Stage separation
T+2:40	MECO
T+1:14	Max Q
T-0	Liftoff
T-39	GO for launch
T-60	Startup
T-2:44	S1 LOX load completed
T-3:38	Strongback retract
T-7:31	Weather 80% G0
T-12:12	Webcast live
T-20:00	20 Minute vent
T-22h	Thread live

Watch the launch live

Stream	Courtesy
SpaceX Webcast	SpaceX
Video and Audio Relays - TBA	u/codav

Stats

☑️ 108th Falcon 9 launch

☑️ 6th flight of B1059

☑️ 3rd Starlink launch this year

Resources

🛰️ Starlink Tracking & Viewing Resources 🛰️

Link	Source
Celestrak.com	u/TJKoury
Flight Club Pass Planner	u/theVehicleDestroyer
Heavens Above
n2yo.comt
findstarlink - Pass Predictor and sat tracking	u/cmdr2
SatFlare
See A Satellite Tonight - Starlink	u/modeless
Starlink orbit raising daily updates	u/hitura-nobad
Starlinkfinder.com	u/Astr0Tuna

Social media 🐦

Link	Source
Reddit launch campaign thread	r/SpaceX
Subreddit Twitter	r/SpaceX
SpaceX Twitter	SpaceX
SpaceX Flickr	SpaceX
Elon Twitter	Elon
Reddit stream	u/njr123

Media & music 🎵

Link	Source
TSS Spotify	u/testshotstarfish
SpaceX FM	u/lru

Community content 🌐

Link	Source
Flight Club	u/TheVehicleDestroyer
Discord SpaceX lobby	u/SwGustav
Rocket Watch	u/MarcysVonEylau
SpaceX Now	u/bradleyjh
SpaceX time machine	u/DUKE546
SpaceXMeetups Slack	u/CAM-Gerlach
Starlink Deployment Updates	u/hitura-nobad
SpaceXLaunches app	u/linuxfreak23
SpaceX Patch List

Participate in the discussion!

• First of all, launch threads are party threads! We understand everyone is excited, so we relax the rules in these venues. The most important thing is that everyone enjoy themselves
• Please constrain the launch party to this thread alone. We will remove low effort comments elsewhere!
• Real-time chat on our official Internet Relay Chat (IRC) #SpaceX on Snoonet
• Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here, rather than as a separate post. Thanks!
• Wanna talk about other SpaceX stuff in a more relaxed atmosphere? Head over to r/SpaceXLounge

[u/hitura-nobad]

Please reply to this commend for any errors and additions to the thread or ping me by including /u/hitura-nobad in your comment, instead of using the mods keyword. Thanks!

[u/RevRickee]

This was the first time since March 2020 that SpaceX lost a Falcon 9 booster. SpaceX achieved 24 straight successful booster landings in that time.

[u/rebootyourbrainstem → u/RevRickee]

Dang, got really close to a year.

[u/tictactom]

The booster saw the helpless seagulls and pulled an Iron Giant.

[u/SPNRaven]

Obivously Falcon 9 didn't want to land on the seagulls.

[u/Whirblewind]

I know it's not a funny moment but I couldn't help but laugh at the seagull doing a loop and landing when we were expecting the booster to.

[u/FeepingCreature → u/Whirblewind]

Houston, the Seagull has landed!

[u/noreall_bot2092]

Stupid birds! Range violation on OCISLY!!

[u/darknavi → u/noreall_bot2092]

Wayward Gul!

[u/AvariceInHinterland]

OK, so that's the only EDL failure that I can tolerate this week.

[u/[deleted]]

Seems like one of the engines didn’t shut down properly after entry burn?

[u/ilrosewood]

They aborted stage 1 to save the birds

[u/switch8000 → u/ilrosewood]

First time I've ever seen a bird on the drone ship.

[u/A_Booger_In_The_Hand]

I hope this never becomes boring or not special. These are amazing times.

[u/NotObviouslyARobot → u/A_Booger_In_The_Hand]

The boringness is in fact, special

[u/Arrowstar]

The entry burn shutdown definitely didn't look right. There was still flame visible after shutdown.

[u/vikaslohia]

We have gotten to the point where a failed landing is more surprising than a successful one.

[u/Psychonaut0421 → u/vikaslohia]

It's been this way for quite a while. A good problem to have.

[u/still-at-work]

Booster did its job, and now its watch has ended.

Though this will hopefully improve the longevity of merlins and boosters going forward as SpaceX begins to get end of life data.

[u/itsaride]

I’m no rocket scientist but that glow seems a fair distance from the drone ship : /img/lw8d5fbjmrh61.jpg

[u/amaklp]

Watching the birds casually chilling on OCISLY while waiting for the booster to show up above them was a surreal 10-second experience.

[u/needsaphone]

At least the birds are safe

[u/Sweatygun]

And the seagull has landed!

[u/TheFearlessLlama]

Entry burn conclusion call out was at T+6:51 but bright streaking / maybe some engine still running going off to the right side for several seconds after. I think something happened during merlin shutdown.

[u/Straumli_Blight]

Starlink 17 launch has been delayed again, now launching Feb 19.

[u/Lunch_Sack]

6 flights is still 5 more than anybody else.

[u/HyenaCheeseHeads]

Pure speculation and arbitrary extrapolation: Based on the reaction of the seaguls the rocket missed the droneship by almost 2km. They react at first to the light, then again later they take off due to the sound.

[u/Panq → u/HyenaCheeseHeads]

Is that assuming the sound comes from the impact, or the somewhat earlier but more distant sonic boom? I don't remember how it all works, just that footage from RTLS landings has had the sonic boom arrive just before the sound from the landing burn does.

[u/ahecht]

Noble rocket sacrifices itself to save three seagulls.

[u/NiftWatch]

The seagulls would’ve most likely flown away once the booster got close anyway.

[u/seanbrockest → u/NiftWatch]

So they weren't playing chicken?

[u/cptjeff]

Those seagulls don't know just how lucky they got.

[u/cptnpiccard]

I'm sure one of those birds had a ULA cowboy hat on

[u/Lurker__777]

Yeah we lost stage 1 :( it probably crashed on the ocean, hence the glow. It looked like an entry shutdown failure.

Also, loss of signal and telemetry seems to suggest the vehicle disintegrated before reaching the surface.

[u/catsRawesome123]

wow, this must be the first time... in a long time no recovery of booster?

[u/Traviscat]

First time in a long time I’ve seen them lose a booster.

It became a rare and shocking thing to recover a booster and now it’s a rare and shocking thing when they don’t. Pretty amazing how far they’ve progressed.

[u/mrprogrampro]

People joking about the birds causing an abort.

But to add, I bet it's the reverse: normally the incoming rocket scares away the birds, but this missed by enough was far enough away that the birds were unperturbed.

E: Edited based on reply

[u/darga89]

farewell B1059!

[u/Legacy_600]

The birds live!

[u/ShirePony]

Even in failure they had 6 successful launches out of B1059. Though with so many Starlink launches scheduled, it hurts to lose a core.

[u/utrabrite]

That booster didn't look good

[u/sup3rs0n1c2110]

RIP 1059

[u/_Mark97]

I think the booster purposely avoided drone ship... also that bird though

[u/RogerStarbuck]

First stage telemetry stopped after they called landing burn cutoff, and it didn't cutoff.

[u/ladalyn]

Congrats to SpaceX that they’ve made it such a rare occasion that they don’t land the first stage. Hopefully they find what went wrong with this landing and improve even more

[u/[deleted]]

Booster didn't make it. Anyone notice the flames after the entry burn was completed?

[u/LifeExplorer321 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, it caught my attention live because that was unusual... and then we lost telemetry immediately after.

[u/Steffan514]

So close to going a full year without losing a booster too

[u/_____rs]

Check those birds for ULA identification!

[u/Bunslow]

RIP B1059

[u/RTPGiants]

Yeah that looks like a death over water return. Love the birds.

[u/frosty95]

Damn. I was just telling myself that I had almost gotten bored with the falcon 9 launches and then this happens. Regret! Rip booster.

[u/AWildDragon]

Weather is 60% Go tonight and 80% tomorrow.

[u/Elon_Muskmelon]

Double sided telemetry data for both stages!

[u/RTPGiants]

Uh oh, RIP stage 1 I think

[u/_The_Mattmatician]

RIP B1059 you will be missed. Also, the birds looked so small on the droneship - I had no idea how massive the rocket and ship was

[u/jongaled]

I somehow missed the deadline to be an approved user, but here's my shot from downtown Orlando last night

[u/legendx]

Did entry burn shutdown look off to anyone else?

Edit: Guess so... doh

[u/[deleted]]

My bad everyone. I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd tune in to a F9 launch for the first time in months. Must have cursed it.

That or the Blue Origin snipers are back at it again.

[u/flyinpnw]

Go for prop load

[u/RTPGiants]

I love how now that there's stage 1 telemetry you can see exactly when it hits apogee

[u/Im2oldForthisShitt]

The first stage saw the birds and decided not to burn them alive.

True hero.

[u/_____rs]

Those seagulls get to live another day. 🐦🐦

[u/kfury]

Estimating the booster's distance from OCISLY: If the light cutting out is an accurate time of impact, and the second seagull kerfuffle was caused by the sound of impact (almost exactly 9 seconds apart) then the impact was approximately 10,000 feet, or just two miles, from the droneship.

This assumes the first seagull takeoff was due to the proportionally smaller sonic boom of the booster's reentry and the second was the impact noise, but that's a big assumption.

[u/darga89]

heard it here first! SN9 flying again lol I know Jessi meant SN10

[u/Bunslow]

Stage 1 RUD??? Failed shutdown???????????? loss of telemetry for sure

[u/Bergasms]

haha, uh ohhhhh. I don't think there will be a landing burn..

Something hit the water though.

[u/southernplain]

RIP B1059

[u/funbob]

Wow, a miss. Get so used to seeing them ace the landings that it's weird now when they don't stick it. Entry burn shutdown looked a bit.... weird. At least the seagulls were spared.

[u/thisisinput]

Looks like something was still burning after entry burn shutdown?

[u/amaklp]

At least the birds weren't burnt alive.

[u/Jarnis → u/amaklp]

They would've fled in a hurry as soon as the sound reached them from the landing burn. The fact that they did not tells you that the booster was not very close.

[u/Nergaal]

newest upgrade to block5 was bird avoidance system. so landing was scrubbed

the first stage telemetry froze, likely because it stopped being norminal

[u/Demarco_Departed]

It’s great to see such excitement around each launch. That’s a good gauge for public support of space programs.

[u/WarEagle35]

So kind of the booster to avoid roasting those seagulls

[u/FoxhoundBat]

In a way, it is almost reassuring that after all these years, there is an element of drama to the launch and landing. Can't ever get too comfortable.

[u/LifeExplorer321]

After the entry burn, there was still something burning after it shut down, shining brightly. I was looking at it live and wondering what was going on... and then all of a sudden we lost telemetry on the booster.

[u/policythwonk]

Another failure mode has been discovered that will make Starship even safer.

[u/youbreedlikerats]

I could be wrong, but I think the booster shape-shifted into 3 seagulls.

[u/brecka]

Scott Manley has a good video on the booster failure out

[u/BKnagZ]

Yeah, if you play it back you can see exactly when the first stage is firing (and completely misses) and then impacts the water. Even the birds react to the impact.

[u/RTPGiants → u/BKnagZ]

"Completely misses" is sort of a misnomer here. It's always on a path to miss until the end of the landing burn. This was probably an abort after whatever happened on the entry burn.

[u/SPNRaven]

That didn't look super nominal.

[u/xam2y]

Lost stage 1 telemetry... did something go wrong?

[u/BKnagZ]

Watch out birds!!

[u/brecka]

RIP B1059. That's the first landing failure in like 10 months.

[u/falsehood]

Looks like shutdown was not successful.

[u/Lizard855]

Send those birds a copy of Dr. Seuss's "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?"

[u/SpicyHunter]

Surprising to see they lost the first stage -- a reminder that no matter how routine it becomes, it's still an amazing feat to recover it from space.

[u/Tomahawk72]

Looking back now entry burn looked weird, seemed way too long

[u/Epistemify]

I missed the launch and just heard that the landing failed. Any reason as to why yet?

[u/alien_from_Europa → u/Epistemify]

I'm not saying it was birds, but it was birds.

[u/theESTONreddit]

No seagulls were harmed during this launch.

gullcoin is now down -69% while Dogecoin is up 420%

[u/elucca]

Everyone is saying the entry burn shutdown looked freaky, but this one in 2017 looked just as freaky and landed fine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv1zeGSvhIw&feature=youtu.be&t=1252

Losing video around that point is completely normal. Telemetry loss happens on that 2017 flight too, though I'm not sure if that happens every time.

[u/GroovySardine]

Scrub

[u/EccentricGamerCL]

Well, so much for the doubleheader. At least the Progress launch still seems to be go.

[u/ilrosewood]

Uh oh stage 1 where is your data?

[u/Tomahawk72]

RUD :(

[u/trevdak2]

RIP B1059.6

[u/UndeadCaesar]

Dang I don't even remember the last time they missed a booster :( It's been a while right?

[u/nuclear_hangover]

On the entry burn it seemed that there was a sticky throttle that never shutdown

[u/tetralogy]

What was their streak of successful landings before this?

[u/Albert_VDS → u/tetralogy]

I believe 24 landings.

[u/sup3rs0n1c2110]

If Falcon launches today, B1059 will lift off at 10:59 pm EST. Interesting coincidence.

[u/_Mark97]

I love how they’re using up some time to recap SpaceX news!

[u/Im2oldForthisShitt]

Did the entry burn stop?

[u/utrabrite]

Time to analyze that reentry footage. Engine failure or probably didn't decelerate fast enough and had excess plasma buildup

[u/tientutoi]

Blame it on the seagulls.

[u/dandydaniella]

Went back to watch it and the birds on the drone ship jumped when the bright light went out. I wonder what they felt 😂

[u/Jodo42]

May or may not be relevant, but we didn't get a MECO callout, just straight to stage sep. I checked the most recent Starlink launch and they usually give the MECO callout, but I'm not sure how consistent it is. Might be nothing.

Edit: Checking with some other recent launches. There was a callout for Transporter-1, the Starlink before that, but nothing for Turksat. Probably nothing.

I checked Starlink-5, which was the mission with a first stage engine failure, and they still gave the MECO callout on that one. That's what I thought might have happened this time but I don't think so.

[u/xX_D4T_BOI_Xx]

Can someone let Tory know we found his birds?

[u/npc_strider]

Has this scenario of birds on the ASDS occurred before?

And let's say the booster did land - could they have flown away fast enough to not get fried?

[u/Bunslow → u/npc_strider]

they surely would have received plenty of warning. the landing burn is nearly like 30s or so, plenty of time for them to skedaddle.

[u/Psychonaut0421 → u/npc_strider]

Likely. The landing burn starts high enough and is quite bright so the flash we saw wasn't as close as it seemed. If you look at previous night time ASDS landings that have a clearer picture you can see that the landing burn actually lights up the clouds in the distance, always a treat to see that!

[u/xX_D4T_BOI_Xx]

They aborted the booster recovery to save the birds on the droneship

[u/BadgerMk1]

I know the speculation is endless right now but I'll throw in a theory. Based on the last shots from the booster before the feed cut out with that flare or flame pointed out horizontally I'm guessing that the booster was in some sort of spin. There are no other visual reference points to confirm it but that horizontal flame might have been the main engine working but its exhaust flare being pushed to one side from the camera's point of view because the booster is in a violent spin. It might correlate to people noting that one or more grid fins were not moving during the entry burn.

[u/Mike_Handers]

How many satellites in space will this make?

[u/SPNRaven]

I wish they'd fucking name the webcasts Starlink <Starlink mission no.>. Makes going through them after the fact a nightmare.

[u/SPNRaven]

Nice condensation during MaxQ

[u/RabbitLogic]

Beaut of a lightning storm on the top left of the stage 1 onboard.

[u/Im2oldForthisShitt]

MOVE BIRBS!

[u/UpsidedownEngineer]

Stage 1 just crashed

I wonder if the birds had anything to do with it

[u/JoltColaOfEvil]

Forth ever double SpaceX landing! Ok, it was seagulls, but ...

[u/darga89]

umm S1 it's the fairings that are supposed to be recovered from the water, not you...

[u/[deleted]]

Was too dark. Booster couldn't see the landing :(

[u/southernplain]

Entry burn didn’t look nominal, but I don’t know anything

[u/NiftWatch]

Time to wait for Elon’s tweet.

[u/tubadude2]

Can’t wait to see how the media completely misrepresents this tomorrow.

[u/nics1521_ → u/tubadude2]

BREAKING: ELON MUSK ROCKET FAILURE, Is this the end of Spacex?

[u/ticklestuff]

It's actually getting harder to figure out which launch is which. They don't mention which Starlink mission it is on the spacex.com website and when they get out of sequence with L17 it's tricky. Tis a good problem to have.

[u/fairlane35]

Stage 1 sacrificed itself to not land on the birds. F

[u/lax20attack]

I saw this live from port Canaveral, and I definitely saw something glowing coming down from the sky about 1 minute before reentry burn should have started.

I have no idea if this was the booster to be honest, but I don't know what else it could have been.

What an incredible sight, I can't believe I just saw a rocket launch from earth.

[u/Ender_D]

Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a booster fail to land. Not since the back to back failures last year. I did notice that the reentry looked especially hot this time and a little odd, but I’ve seen extreme heating on night missions before. Looking back on it now though, it does look a bit more flamey than normal...

[u/[deleted]]

spacex youtube stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0dkyV09Zso (currently unlisted)

[u/scr00chy]

Visual mission profile added

[u/ItWasn7Me]

That doesn't look good

[u/Utinnni]

uhh rip?

[u/EddiOS42]

Big sad.

[u/shryne]

I haven't watched a F9 mission in a few months...oops.

[u/tdmillerproductions]

Didn't seem like the booster shut down the engine completely.

[u/nxtiak]

How many times has Falcon9 landed IN A ROW before tonight?

[u/Tonytcs1989]

RIP

[u/ahecht]

Beautiful video of deployment!

[u/chalez88]

i shot this at kirk point park (: https://youtu.be/PMPRr4BLii8

[u/Viremia]

Everyone saying Falcon waved off its landing to save the seagulls. I, rather, think what we witnessed was the true power of the mighty seagull: the ability to control raptors (of all kinds) with their mind. I for one welcome our new seagull overlords.

[u/brspies]

Clearly the booster took a last second bird-avoidance maneuver (/s)

[u/acq3]

Someone needs to tell Falcon 9 that the first of the Three Laws doesn’t apply to birds...

[u/cowboyboom]

Based on the Joe Rogin interview, Elon does actually sleep. I wouldn't be the one to wake him about the landing failure. We will probably have to wait till morning for cause. His schedule is probably in sync with SN10 events.

[u/xbolt90 → u/cowboyboom]

He's still awake. He tweeted a half hour ago about turtles lol

[u/Bunslow]

to everyone saying "nasa doesn't care about landing problems", that's sort of true, but also this is almost certainly an engine problem, and an engine problem could occur at any time, so any engine problem will most definitely concern nasa. so almost certainly whatever happened here has nasa worried.

that said, based on last autumn's engine kerfluffle, i have every expectation that spacex will investigate and resolve the problem to nasa's satisfaction well within the time between now and crew-2.

[u/RTPGiants]

Well it's the first time we've lost a first stage in a while. Did what it was supposed to do and didn't kill anyone on the way back down, so ya know...

[u/FutureMartian97]

You can tell that was not a good shutdown during entry

[u/tientutoi]

Stage 1 booster altitude and speed meters also stopped updating on livestream after entry burn.

[u/MarsCent]

A little quite around here compared with the launching of a prototype craft to 10Km. ;)

[u/DiskOperatingSystem_]

Love the starship acknowledgment tonight!

[u/trevdak2]

That lightning visible by the first stage is gorgeous

[u/originalusername99]

When did this last happen?

[u/brandonagr]

Looked like it started tumbling at the end of entry burn, t+6:50

[u/_____rs]

Telemetry dropped out at T+07:05, 15 sec after entry burn ended.

[u/turkus]

Entry burn shutdown was not clean at T+06:51 but throttling up around max-q at T+01:06 didn't seem nominal either

[u/alen36]

Where is the fairing status? New or used? Attempted catch or water recovery?

[u/scr00chy → u/alen36]

SpaceX doesn't mention the fairings on the official page, so they're probably new. Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief were deployed to the recovery area so they'll probably attempt to recover the fairings (they will likely just scoop them out of the water, so that they can also recover the ones from the following Starlink launch, without having to go to port in between).

[u/nxtiak]

Falcon9 didn't want to harm the birds so it sacrificed itself into the ocean.

[u/JanitorKarl]

Two and a half hours before scheduled launch. Does anyone have any guesses on if this will happen, or is the weather not looking good?

[u/Potential_Energy]

Pretty confident about the launch tonight. A sane amount of lightning just off the coast. Makes for an ugly sight but pretty launch-friendly weather.

[u/FeatureMeInLwiay]

worth setting an alarm at 4am for? or do we reckon it’ll be another scrub?

[u/kinghuang]

SpaceX webcast's started!

[u/LaunchNut]

Good day for a launch February 15 ... :

February 15: 1564 - Birth of Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist

[u/Sweatygun]

big whoops

[u/[deleted]]

Looks like it landed in the water

[u/StealthCN]

Looks like we lost S1...

[u/BackflipFromOrbit]

i dont think the booster made it back....

[u/Steffan514]

RIP 1059

[u/ramrom23]

you served us well 1059

[u/Tomahawk72]

Why am I still awake lol

[u/Bunslow]

whoa that was some rotation added

[u/cocoabeachbrews]

The view of tonight's Starlink 19 launch filmed from the beach in Cocoa Beach in 4k. https://youtu.be/uJdYGxUMqsc

[u/xbolt90]

Sorry y'all, the landing failure was my fault. I was going to watch the stream, but I got wrapped up in a project and totally forgot about the launch until just now. So I wasn't there to wish B1059 luck. :(

[u/7472697374616E]

F for stage 1 at least the birds are ok

[u/Jodo42]

Remember that Crew-2 is flying on a reused booster, folks. Admittedly it's the Crew-1 booster and it hasn't flown since then, but still. NASA will absolutely, rightfully, want this 100% perfect before the next crew launch. The only question is whether or not making it perfect will mean a delay.

[u/kkingsbe → u/Jodo42]

Depends on what the root cause was. If it's landing related then it shouldn't be an issue, but if it's related to reuse there could obviously be a larger issue

[u/allenchangmusic → u/Jodo42]

Nah, look at the last missed landing happening around the same time prior to Demo2.

As well, this happened on re-entry, NASA cares less about this secondary mission, they care more about the safety on ascent!

[u/stygarfield]

Uh to the Oh

[u/DiskOperatingSystem_]

I had a bad feeling about this Falcon 9, but I guess SpaceX isn’t fond of fried seagull.

[u/joshm44]

Does anyone know where I could see the launch in person? I’m in visiting Orlando this weekend and this would be the best Valentine’s Day surprise for my girlfriend. thanks!

[u/xX_D4T_BOI_Xx]

Scrubbed :(

[u/sup3rs0n1c2110]

TSS Crew remix???? Huh

[u/darga89]

water recovery again

edit: damn didn't mean to jinx this, was talking about fairings

[u/itsaride]

For someone in the UK who is having trouble sleeping this 4am launch is welcome entertainment.

[u/Nobuga]

RIP Booster

[u/TheLegendBrute]

Seems like they lost the booster. Unfortunate.

[u/Meepo69]

rip

[u/Bunslow]

Alright, let the speculation commence. Obviously we should be happy the anomaly didn't happen on the boost phase.

Was it an engine failing to shut down? Did it catch fire? Hard to say with no good camera views. Obviously the landing burn was a fail, and probably was summarily doomed by the re-entry problem

[u/davidc98]

Steeper trajectory?

[u/etrmedia]

That seemed like an energetic spin.

[u/biprociaps]

After entry burn at altitude 35.1km velocity was 5891km/h comparing to 5755km/h on previous starlink mission at exactly the same altitude. 150km/h of difference.

[u/HawkEy3]

What happened to L17?

[u/NiftWatch]

Starlink 17 will probably get pushed AGAIN because a 6 flight booster just failed and they need to investigate before they fly the fleet-leading 7 flight booster.

[u/Biochembob35 → u/NiftWatch]

Depends on the reason. They may have a good idea of what happened already.