Elon Musk

[AFTT47]

Kessler syndrome isn't a worry with such low orbits.

[Pat Mustard]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket has failed for the first time in nearly a decade, leaving the company’s internet satellites in an orbit so low that they’re doomed to fall through the atmosphere and burn up.

The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Thursday night, carrying 20 Starlink satellites. Several minutes into the flight, the upper stage engine malfunctioned. SpaceX on Friday blamed a liquid oxygen leak.

The company said flight controllers managed to make contact with half of the satellites and attempted to boost them to a higher orbit using onboard ion thrusters. But with the low end of their orbit only 84 miles (135 kilometers) above Earth — less than half what was intended — “our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites,” the company said via X.

SpaceX said the satellites will reenter the atmosphere and burn up. There was no mention of when they might come down. More than 6,000 orbiting Starlinks currently provide internet service to customers in some of the most remote corners of the world.

https://apnews.com/article/spacex-falcon...328e92fd59

I'm guessing they've stopped doing QC and full maintenance on the rockets, given how hard up the company is.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm guessing they've stopped doing QC and full maintenance on the rockets, given how hard up the company is.

With a LOX leak, they're lucky it didn't explode.

[A. Secular Human]

I'm guessing they've stopped doing QC and full maintenance on the rockets, given how hard up the company is.

With a LOX leak, they're lucky it didn't explode.

Depends on how you define "explode".  If you watch the second stage burn, there was a pretty violent sudden expansion of the reflective protective foil right before the ice crystals started forming out of the "bottom" of it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

With a LOX leak, they're lucky it didn't explode.

Depends on how you define "explode".  If you watch the second stage burn, there was a pretty violent sudden expansion of the reflective protective foil right before the ice crystals started forming out of the "bottom" of it.

I haven't watched the video. On my own knowledge, I know that in the presence of even a little fuel and LOX vaporizing, the aluminum will almost certainly burn too. Aluminum is fuel is a highly oxygenated atmosphere. Perhaps the slipstream pulled the vaporizing LOX away?

A Japanese cruiser at the Battle of Samar had its aluminum superstructure set ablaze by USS Samuel B. Roberts, which out of all HE shells, resorted to firing starshells, which have oxidizer impregnated into them. LOX is much more concentrated than that chemical oxidizer was.

Also, IJN Mikuma was torn apart at the Battle of Midway when an American dive-bomber hit its above-deck torpedoes (which were aerated by LOX) and the explosion leveled the aft of the 600'-long ship:

[Fake Messiah]

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure hope the martian rations have a longer shelf life than musks public statements.

[Nanny]

Elmo endorses Fatso out of unbridled self interest.

[Silver]

Elon Musk has announced plans to move the headquarters of X and SpaceX out of California, after the state passed a new law that explicitly prohibits school districts outing trans students to their parents.

Pink News

[arewethereyet]

Elon Musk has announced plans to move the headquarters of X and SpaceX out of California, after the state passed a new law that explicitly prohibits school districts outing trans students to their parents.

Pink News

Fuck.  He'll probably end up here in Texas.  Like we need another idiot with a microphone and money.