SpaceX Tuesday...

[Eric Mc]

I don't think the landing worked.

[MartG]

Eric Mc said:

I don't think the landing worked.

Seemed to be a lot of smoke & flames, but I thought I caught a glimpse of the stage on the barge before the video cut - maybe it fell over

[cwis]

Eric Mc said:

I don't think the landing worked.

It did look a bit smokey and flamey!

[Brother D]

Eric Mc said:

I don't think the landing worked.

It looked like it landed to me? but then the feed cut off. (There was quite a bit of swell in the background thou...)

[Eric Mc]

There certainly seemed a bit more flame than we've seen before.

[callmedave]

Eric Mc said:

I don't think the landing worked.

I Could make out something that looked like an upright rocket and a lot more fire. smoke was darker also, usually its whiter. This would imply something is burning.

Also I think the crowd behind the presenters saw more than we did and i didnt hear any cheers or whoops.

The booster stage definitely made it to the drone ship. what it is in now is not determined. Space X are good at being open about these things, im keeping an eye on twitter for updates

[leglessAlex]

It did look very flamey, is OCISLY equipped with a basic fire supressing system?

[Beati Dogu]

They have fire hoses that can douse the rocket with water. They can be turned on remotely of course.

[Flooble]

In general the successful landings have not had video interruptions, so it doesn't look promising. Just when it was getting routine!

[anonymous-user]

Flooble said:

Just when it was getting routine!

Easy to forget just how difficult this is with the few great recent successes.

[Eric Mc]

Flinging rockets into space - and trying to get them back - will NEVER be routine.

[Beati Dogu]

The rocket looked quite far off centre, near the outer landing ring. So maybe it tipped over the side.

http://i.imgur.com/llSiNZr.png

[Eric Mc]

They've just confirmed that they did not recover the 1st stage.

[MartG]

SpaceX presenters say they lost the launcher, but no details yet

[Flooble]

Watching the full size stream again it was down - but there was a big fire that looked far more than just the rocket petering out. Wonder if they will lose the drone ship too>

[Beati Dogu]

The droneship will be fine. Even if the rocket punched a big hole right through it.

Elon Musk tweeted:

1) Ascent phase & satellites look good, but booster rocket had a RUD on droneship

2) Looks like thrust was low on 1 of 3 landing engines. High g landings v sensitive to all engines operating at max.

3) RUD = Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly [his smiley BTW]

4) Upgrades underway to enable rocket to compensate for a thrust shortfall on one of the three landing engines. Probably get there end of year.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk

[Eric Mc]

Great that the explanation comes so quickly.

[anonymous-user]

It is incredible how open they are and how quick they are to inform. Really impressive.

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

Flinging rockets into space - and trying to get them back - will NEVER be routine.

When we crack 'anti-gravity' we'll be fine

[FurtiveFreddy]

Is RUD a TLA Musk made up? I like it either way