SpaceX F9 : Starlink 6 (v1.0 L5) : Mar. 18, 2020 - Discussion

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/abernnyc/status/1239349655613386753

Really dug this shot of @ChrisG_NSF and @julia_bergeron hard at work covering today's attempted @SpaceX launch

[marsbase]

The updated press kit and new webcast.

Note that once again the time on the webcast "front page" in not correct.  Launch time is 08:16 EDT, 12:16 UTC.  It would also be 05:16 PDT. The time shown on the webcast page is 11:16 which makes no sense at all.

[drnscr]

What, if anyone has heard, was the mitigation for the out of family reading?

[AndrewRG10]

What, if anyone has heard, was the mitigation for the out of family reading?

I would say close to 80% of all aborts are due to sensor issues that need to be turned off and on. The remainder of the issues require a couple of weeks to replace faulty parts or it's a fuel problem where they just make sure fuel is cold enough.
We haven't heard official word but I think it's pretty likely the failure just needed a sensor turned off and on.

[ejb749]

What, if anyone has heard, was the mitigation for the out of family reading?

I would say close to 80% of all aborts are due to sensor issues that need to be turned off and on. The remainder of the issues require a couple of weeks to replace faulty parts or it's a fuel problem where they just make sure fuel is cold enough.
We haven't heard official word but I think it's pretty likely the failure just needed a sensor turned off and on.

The fact that tomorrow is launch, and not a static fire seems to indicate it was a sensor problem, not an engine problem.

[mrhuggy]

Just after the Entry Burn you could see the 1st stage oscillating back and forth and no word on landing.

[DavidH]

At 6:40 in the launch sequence the first stage seemed to fly by a large object.

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[Kaputnik]

So at this moment in time it looks like the booster might not have made it back to the drone ship.
The important thing, though, is that the 5th reflight did its job- as did the fairing reuse.

[AndrewRG10]

Recovery weather looks good. 1.5 metre waves and minimal winds and minimal gusts at altitudes below 20,000ft. Very good for the fairings. Looking like perfect launch, just got to hope it isn't jinxed and it fails on launch or landing or a parachute fails on the fairing.

Called it, you can never have a perfect launch (and landing) weather and conditions in spaceflight.

Let's hope it's a sensor issue and can recycle tomorrow.

Not to speculate but yep I was expecting that. I felt the last one would fail too

[ugordan]

Stage 1 looked wobbly after entry burn and no confirmation of landing burn.

Yeah, even the entry burn looked a bit sideways like the downrange or crossrange impact point distance was bigger than expected. Then the fairly aggressive grid fin steering.

My money's on downrange distance difference as that's going to be dependent actual vehicle ascent performance whereas it can keep inside the crossrange ascent corridor pretty well.

[ZachF]

We have two booster recover failures now (out of two) on the new Starlink delivery profile... perhaps it's time to ditch it?

[toruonu]

It may have been a blip, but just before MECO I thought I noticed a buff of vapor  from the engine region that seemed out of nominal, but the engines kept going so probably nothing.

[haywoodfloyd]

Might be a little early to make that call.
Last attempt failure was due to off-nominal or rather higher than expected winds.

[whitelancer64]

We have two booster recover failures now (out of two) on the new Starlink delivery profile... perhaps it's time to ditch it?

We don't know the cause of this landing failure. Way too soon to say that.

[eeergo]

Clearly something coming off the engine section. Maybe the liftoff abort was something to worry about.

[Glorin]

It may have been a blip, but just before MECO I thought I noticed a buff of vapor  from the engine region that seemed out of nominal, but the engines kept going so probably nothing.

No, I saw that too and it didn’t look very normal.

Edit: T+2:21 to be exact-ish.

[theonlyspace]

To bad about the booster loss

[mdo]

At T+6:37 an object seemed to separate from the first stage. Maybe just an ice particle?

[ugordan]

Has there ever been such a big difference between S2 groundtrack and S1 groundtrack? S2 flew quite a bit north from ASDS, it's unclear if S1 was heading precisely toward it or slightly north as well?

[su27k]

It may have been a blip, but just before MECO I thought I noticed a buff of vapor  from the engine region that seemed out of nominal, but the engines kept going so probably nothing.

No, I saw that too and it didn’t look very normal.

Edit: T+2:21 to be exact-ish.

Some kind of energetic event? An engine gave out?