They had another nozzle failure during a test fire in 2019. Root cause ended up being the ground test setup causing a failure mode that wouldn’t (couldn’t) happen in flight. Maybe they made a similar error with this rocket.
Well, that’s weird… we just had one of those over GA…
Normally when someone reports that they saw a fireball and heard it those claims arent correlated because the observed fireballs are so high that sound wouldn’t reach the observers ears. In this case though it appears to be really low, and the observers may have heard a sonic boom.
Yeah, yeah… same people, people saw it, and felt it… Weird that these happened so close together timewise, but in different places?
It’s not just Musk. The official budget request from the White House proposed phasing out the SLS:
$2.6B of this funding is earmarked for the Lunar Gateway space station. Which is completely unnecessary for moon missions and probably could never be built for that price in the first place. (Each SLS launch costs more than $2B on its own so how do they plan to get it up there?)
But Congressmembers with big aerospace contractors in their districts have their own logic, I suppose.
Around a dozen fireballs per day (night) is typical.
Some things that affect reporting are time of day, whether the fireball crosses a heavily populated area, and whether people are out and about at the time.
Oh, did not know that!
Ars Technica – 2 Jul 25
The object has a very high eccentricity.
It poses no threat to Earth and, unfortunately, it appears that our planet will be on the opposite side of the Sun when the object makes its closest approach.
Seems we should still be able to get some pretty damn good data on this one!
Maybe one of the craft watching the sun could be repurposed for a bit?
We’re acting so excited, meanwhile the bugs on Klendathu are adjusting their aim.
Additional information - especially regarding the logistics1) that would be involved - and links to sources:
1) The original two 747s used to shuttle the orbiters around have long been retired and aren’t flightworthy anymore, but I hear there’s a spare 747-8 somewhere in Florida. Maybe Ted can borrow it?