Musk explained it exploded after a 40-second delay:
I think that many people had already reached this conclusion but it is nice to have confirmation about the time delay.
In a Twitter audio chat on Saturday, SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, shared more details about what went awry during the first fully integrated Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster launch in April. One of the biggest revelations: The self-destruct setting took 40 seconds to work — a seemingly short time, except when you're uncertain if the massive rocket you just launched will blow up before hitting land. To recap the day's events, the rocket and booster cleared the launch pad before being unable to separate from each other, flipping and, finally, blowing up. The automated command should have immediately caused an explosion, but tumbled around for a bit first. [...]
In one of many spins on the day's failures, Musk claimed it was because "the vehicle's structural margins appear to be better than we expected." While SpaceX previously said the only goal was that initial takeoff, a lot clearly went wrong.
The delayed self-destruction wasn't the only issue following the launch from SpaceX's facility in Boca Chica, Texas. After the eventual explosion, debris fell across about 385 acres of land made up of the SpaceX facility and Boca Chica State Park. The latter resulted in a 3.5-acre fire. Musk's response? "To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we're aware of."
The FAA has already announced it's investigating the events and will ground Starship until "determining that any system, process or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety." Even with all of that, Musk went so far as to call the launch "successful" and "maybe slightly exceeding my expectations."
(Score: 5, Funny) by Opportunist on Wednesday May 03, @06:57AM (3 children)
He can't even fail properly anymore.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 03, @10:41AM (2 children)
The code for self-destruct was probably too complicated: "Destruct sequence 1: Code 1 - 1A. Destruct sequence 2: Code 1 - 1A 2B. Destruct sequence 3: Code 1 - B2 B3."
But hey, at least Nicki Minaj was proven wrong, because it turns out Starship was not meant to fly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by WeekendMonkey on Wednesday May 03, @12:21PM
Or was there a built-in option to abort the self-destruct, just in case things magically sorted themselves out in the next 40 seconds.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday May 03, @05:27PM
Pfft, this is Elon Musk's company. What probably happened was the tech on duty had to look up how to type Æ on his keyboard.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday May 03, @10:48AM (3 children)
> call the launch "successful"
He can't call it anything else given the amount of money sunk. It can be but he cannot call it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 03, @02:55PM
The expression on his face was not one of "success".
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday May 03, @03:07PM (1 child)
I understand the sentiment and it is a huge amount of money to sink into a project that could (literally) explode in their faces.
That said, they've accomplished a lot through failure-driven development. Remember when reusable rockets were a pipe dream? Remember Buzz Aldrin telling Musk it was impossible? Multiple F9 boosters have reached their 15-flight requalification limit, and there's talk of upping the limit. The math isn't as simple as $60 million booster / 15 flights = $4million per flight = saving $56 million per flight, but they are saving piles of money with booster reuse. That savings allows them to take on big projects, screw up a lot, and still keep the lights on.
Move fast and break stuff looks like bumbling from the outside, but it's hard to argue the company isn't doing something right.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday May 03, @09:49PM
The approach was obviously working for Falcon so it will probably work for Spaceship too. Burn money to save time. But my point was that Musk will not give a negative sum statement about a launch, even if only for PR reasons. That's of course provided nobody died. And that's why his statements on the launch are redundant to quote. There will always be at least a tiny bit of new info learned from a launch, and therefore can be declared success.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday May 03, @02:57PM (3 children)
Could starship carry a nuke? This could be done in the guise of having a reliable Fright Termination System (FTS).
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Touché) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday May 03, @05:48PM (1 child)
I am not an expert on this topic. My understanding is that detonating a nuclear device at an altitude between 30 and 400 km above Texas would result in a *Very Bad No Good Day*.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday May 03, @07:41PM
So . . . uh . . . you're saying it would terminate future flights as well. For a while. Like a loop:
while(false) { doSomething(); }
At least until we can rebuild a technical civilization with the capability to spread misinformation at the speed of light.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 03, @06:46PM
Starship could carry enough TNT to level half of Manhattan. It's the non-nuclear option.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday May 03, @11:36PM (1 child)
The FAA announced that it will ground Starship.
We already know that each launch requires explicit permission. The FAA announcement shows that they're publicity-seeking clowns claiming omnipotence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @01:13AM
Most journalists don't know what to do with the information because they don't cover the industry in depth. There are even worse offenders than Endgadget.
(Score: 1) by Se5a on Thursday May 04, @01:21AM
He said before launch that getting off the pad without blowing up would be "success".
The ship responded immediately, it just didn't have enough explosive to fully destroy it till it got lower into atmosphere and the damage already done by the explosives combined with tumbling through thicker atmosphere caused it to break up.
You can see it venting through the holes the explosives caused.
This reads like a hit piece.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday May 15, @11:03PM
I know no-one will see this, but it looks like SpaceX tested a new flight termination system today.
https://twitter.com/CSI_Starbase/status/1658226544668553216?s=20 [twitter.com]