Less than an hour before test flight six. Is anybody else excited to see this?
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Too bad they weren’t able to catch it…
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Yeah, that was pretty spectacular on flight 5. The booster was still pretty far out when they called it. It will be interesting to hear what the caused the abort. One interesting bit is the communication mast on top of the launch tower was damaged at liftoff. It was leaning at a noticeable (30°?) angle.
I'm not surprised they are playing it safe. They only have one launch tower at the moment. The town is also pretty close from a safety perspective. While I don't expect them to come in that far off course with all their experience in landing, it is still something to be considered with a new platform.
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Just 30 days ago I visited Boca Chica and got to see Booster 13 just after it was rolled out to the launch site onto pad A. Sad that it didn't survive!
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They currently only have one that is operational. But the second one at Boca Chica is close to complete (on the left in photo above). The first one at the KSC (at LC-39A) is nearly complete, although they stopped work there for the moment. The parts for the second and third ones at the Cape are currently being assembled.
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The red star marks approximately where I was standing when I took the above picture. (This is a screen grab from the IFT-6 live stream just before launch)
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Yes they have more in the works, however, I expect flight 7 will be ready long before tower two is operational. Yesterday they were giving an updated license for up year to 25 flights a year. Hopefully flight 7 with the newer designs will be sooner than later.
Regardless, it will be interesting to hear what caused them to abort the landing attempt. It was aborted fairly soon after the boost-back.
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It is amazing how close you can get to the launch site. I was likewise surprised that the bus tour at KSC brought us within 100-150 yards of STS-125 on the day of the launch.
I was able to watch the launch from about seven miles away on the top of the Astronaut Hall of Fame building. You can get a lot closer to a launch at Bocca Chica.
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and there is a picture of the communications mast on the top of the tower askew right after the launch.
I mentioned the mast in my second post. You could see it leaning right after the rocket cleared the tower. I had no idea if it was an issue for the landing but it is good to see the post from Musk.
