From the evidence so far, it appears that one or both of the hydraulic
power units failed and later in the flight it was flying with little
or no control authority. Huge inertia and the CG had moved somewhat
toward the CP by then, allowing it to continue forward for a while,
but it was still aerodynamically unstable and went from crazy AoA to
complete flips before the flight termination system was commanded.
I don't believe it was the nominal staging flip. With so many engines
off (at least three at liftoff, something like six later in the
flight) it would have been a longer than planned first stage burn. The
stack was doing ~0.4 km/s ground relative, which is not an orbital
rocket first stage performance.
Heat shield tiles are starting to wash up on the beach. I hope people
put them up on ebay, and don't fall for any "that's spacex property
you must return it" bullshit.
On Thu, Apr 20, 2023 at 11:37 PM James Fackert <jimfackert@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It sure seems that flight termination was very clean and deliberate. Two
clean explosions a few seconds apart. Is it possible that the loss of several
engines meant that altitude and velocity was not adequate to satisfy
successful flight parameters, the safety system would not allow separation,
but instead, demanded explosive termination of the booster and the second
stage flights? I dont think it was a rapid unanticipated dissasembly- it
seemed clean and clearly deliberate.
If the second stage had inadequate velocety and was separated and ignited, it
might have ended up .... anywhere? and that would not be good.
So success is impossible, get it over with with minimal threat to others.