That final explosion was sad. But my god did it look awesome when it jumped and deflated
That was amazing! And as a lot of people are noting on Twitter, with a record 10 minute turnaround to a second flight! Unfortunately, the second flight was short and SN10 was not able to stick the second landing 
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In a way it landed twice?
I completely screwed up the watching of that. I watched the SpaceX stream and saw the smoke come out and then not do anything. I convinced myself it was an abort again and then closed browsers and went back on the phone (technically I’m in a ‘meeting’). A few minutes later went to close twitter and saw the live viewing tweet from SpaceX showing T 5min+ of the thing flying horizontal. Oops.
Luckily watched it live land, so that was good. Then closed browser again and rejoined phone call, only to find out that it fell over and blew up and I missed it. I need to wait a bit more before closing browsers.
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I think it actually didn’t fall over and explode but explode while standing straight up.
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What a show! That’s huge progress - they stuck the landing!
I guess we will find out whether the hard landing caused the ultimate explosion, or something else - there was quite a bit of fire at the base of the rocket right after landing.
They clearly solved the header tank pressure dilemma.
They should also have received useful telemetry about the vehicle’s behaviour from those last meters of descent that they may not have had before, to make the next landing smoother.
I remember when the F9 landings were a bit like that and now they are so smooth that it’s only news if they don’t stick them.
It’ll be interesting to find out what they learned from the 6-flight veteran F9 booster that didn’t come back recently. Still did it’s mission but one of the engines failed on the reenty burn by the sounds.
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A nice ‘the legs didn’t lock’ video. Could be a problem with them, or some other earlier event (big fire, engine RUD’ing etc?) that caused the legs issue to happen. They’ve likely got lots of data now, so roll on SN11. 
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That’s a very good spot from someone and an interesting video!
If the legs got scrunched up under the vehicle and dropped the rim all the way against the ground, that could have created a chamber underneath the vehicle for unused fuel / oxidiser to get hot in with no chance to flush it with the firehoses…
But I’m completely guessing here with no idea 
I’m thinking that those landing legs need to be lowered electrically rather than relying on gravity.
The problem with that is that they want to minimize the weight. I am not sure how big batteries and motors would have to be for that, but every kilogram counts.
As for the explosion, my initial guess is:
- legs crushed, skirt damaged
- engine(s) damaged
- damaged engines leak methane
- it burns
- it cannot be properly extinguished
- fire reaches tanks (maybe tanks also damaged)
- boom
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This just in: SpaceX landed one Falcon 9 first stage for the 9th time, earlier today.
That means 77 landings in total now IIRC.
Edit: btw SN10 impacted with 10m/s due to helium from the header tank pressurization system in the fuel mixture, so no wonder it was damaged.
SN11 is on the launchpad already and will fly soon.
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As much as I loathe the very idea of the billionaire class existing, I do 
mr. Musk. Between Tesla making electric cars a desirable item instead of a plaything for the rich environmentalist, they made them a status symbol of luxury and performance. Changing the public image of the electric car may have been the best deed a billionaire as done so far.
And with SpaceX he’s picking up the slack all the national space agencies are letting in truly pushing spaceflight technology forward. Every one of these starship flights is another historical step towards the stars.
So here’s to Elon 
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A picture (not mine) of the rocket zooming past North Carolina this morning.
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SN11 static fire test happening right now.
@schurem @Aginor @fearlessfrog @PaulRix
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Thank you!
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I don’t disagree but I differ in the level of credit I give him. He is a man standing on the shoulders of giants.
Looks like another static fire test
@schurem @Aginor @fearlessfrog @PaulRix
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Looking forward to a hop this week? Nice!
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Are they doing a static fire and a hop the same day? Lots of activity…
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Yep, looks like they are up to something today…
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They are arming the FTS (Flight Termination System?) - great view from this feed. Cut the red wire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCbgoqMcirI
EDIT: Done for the day, wrong wire…
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