Originally Posted by
pasta
Were they even watching the footage, and if so did they know anything at all about rocketry? They seemed totally oblivious to the first flip, and when it went for its second they started talking about a "flip for stage separation".
There is a few seconds lag in the stream, compounded by the response time. I had a few streams up at the time and none were in sync.
I'm actually quite impressed at how robust the system was. Clearly experiencing multiple issues from an early stage with engines out, exhaust plumes that showed something other than fuel being burned, and exhaust plumes in strange directions, but the guidance system kept it pointing in the right direction for a long time regardless. Even when that couldn't cope, it managed 2 full loops without falling apart. That will have given them a lot more data, and stress-tested a lot more systems, than if someone had triggered the FTS as soon as things were obviously going wrong.
Absolutely, most rockets disintegrate as soon as they get even a few degrees off plan. It looked like it was doing barrel rolls at one point. 😁
Will be very interested to see whether there were multiple independent failures or a single root cause (and if the latter, whether flying concrete was a major factor).
I've seen one still from a video taken from the tower, it showed all engines running initially, other footage shows at least five engines down as it cleared the tower and then another four or five failures during ascent. Apparently one of the hydraulic power units let go big style too, causing slow directional control, which should be overcome on the next booster as they have changed to an electrical gimballing system.