I have been reported that there was another NOTAM for the Starship that covers all along and across the islands. Never found it. But if it's real, then maybe these pilots and airlines didn't take it into consideration when fuel planning. Does anybody know and can source it? Thanks Juan for your report.
The hazard areas are put out in NOTAM and the Debris Response Areas are only activated if theirs a mishap, they aren’t put out until their is a reason to activate it.
@@Baldorceteit’s only a few minutes from launch, but these launches normally have an hour or two window for each attempt. No way to predict exactly when to launch, so they would have to overprotect. Most of the hazard areas are two or three hour blocks. Now if they put out the debris areas as part of NOTAM, what would change? Would pilots/dispatchers flight plan around them? Would they put on additional fuel to allow for delay if it goes active? Would anyone do anything different at all?
I was listening to San Juan Center live, and it was a crazy day due to a full runway closure at SJU earlier in the afternoon. There were 16 aircraft on approach at the time of the debris mayhem. Major kudos to the controllers at ZSU for handling a day with two very complex situations and keeping everyone safe!
On top of that, Santo Domingo FIR stopped accepting aircraft from ZSU and ZMA, and both Punta Cana and San Juan airports had full ramps as well. Just glad it all worked out.
Worked at Air Traffic Control in New Zealand in the late 1990's. We have the 2nd largest Oceanic Flight Information Region in the world. When the Space Shuttle was launched we would have a no fly zone block of airspace 2000 x 4000km in the southern Pacific Ocean west of Easter Island. This was the aera that any large remaining debris of the external fuel tank would fall.
The FAA allows rocket companies to investigate themselves because they are submitting these flights *specifically* as test flights within a test and development program, and so failures are somewhat expected and are considered acceptable. The only real type of unacceptable failure are where a rocket fails in a way that breaches the pre-defined safety requirements in a way that either endangers or gets sufficiently close to endangering parts of the test range. In such cases the FAA usually gets more involved whereas in cases like these that stayed within the established bounds but still had some level of risk the FAA requires that at least *some* investigation be done but is satisfied that the company is probably operating in good faith due to it being within the already established bounds for margins of safety. If the failure was more minor than this such as with Blue Origin's landing attempt it's likely no investigation would be required at all, as with previous Starship failures. Because these are not operational vehicles the FAA is only really concerned with public safety as it pertains to the risk to life and property that testing campaigns pose and companies must already comply with fairly stringent safety planning to even be granted license to launch. So long as companies are found to have been honest and good faith with their planning and contingencies the FAA generally tries to stay out of the way to allow for testing so long as public safety is guaranteed
Thanks for your opinion. Would you kindly tell us a something about Elon that you don't like? Just so that everyone knows you're not one of the crows of mindless fash fanbois goathing for their idol. Thanks.
@blancolirio I am surprised to see a stereotypical "RUclips influencer" type Clickbait title and thumbnail from a respected channel like this. I am surprised that JB is not familiar at all with the test regime. I had expected to see something substantial about the lack of the FAA passing on what any of us space honniests could have predicted was a high probability event. Also, no reporting AT ALL about what happened to Blue Origin's First stage that had a planned landing down range but didn't/ Why no reporting probably was no cool video and audio to attract clicks.
Flight Ops Supervisor here. I was on shift on that day. The only intel and info was provided by ATC. No Notams or PIREP, so no ideia of the affected area and the what to expect. Thx for sharing
Which makes me even more upset about Ellie in Space'a video about this with an airline pilot. She made it seem like the pilots were aware of the hazard and took precautions, they did not. The multiple low fuel maydays and diversions say otherwise.
For those upset that these businesses are conducting their own ‘mishap investigation’ - the company already has FAA approved (at least indirectly) procedures that govern every aspect from manufacture to launch to recovery etc….the company also has procedures covering problems and mishaps. If this incident caused fatalities the NTSB would take over the entire investigation. The FAA will be closely involved with the ‘mishap investigation’ including reviewing the procedures and their findings and ‘preventative actions’ going forward. This is actually the best, fastest, most efficient and most thorough method of investigating this matter.
It's not good info. It's mostly clickbait backed by inaccurate information. Scott Manley is wrong, and Juan completely ignored any statements by Musk about what actually happened.
Agreed. The NOTAM was not sufficient to cover the expectable outcomes of this test flight. I suspect that FAA will be changing how it does business now that people who had no clue are aware of the risks that have existed for decades and especially the last few months or years with several new rockets from several companies.
Another commercial pilot said diverting around known issues is routine and happens all the time. The starship flight path and potential debris field was established and announced ahead of time. When the rocket was lost Spacex communicated with the FAA so they could inform aircraft and steer them clear of the pre-announced, mapped, risk area. So which is it, are pilots and the ATC, professionals who know how to respond to issues they were briefed on or not?
How do you divert around an issue that spans hundreds of miles? The planes aren’t going around it, they can’t go over it or under it. How can you be 100% certain at what point all the debris has fallen out of the sky before it’s safe to cross this line again? If one plane hits a piece of this debris the results could be catastrophic
I think Scott Manley speculated that the new Block-2 Ship 33 Starship explosion may have been caused by the FTS (Flight Termination System) explosives being triggered by Starship itself, after it lost most steering capability by losing the three of its six Raptor engines that can gimbal. SpaceX might have programmed Starship to trigger FTS based on FAA guidelines that may no longer be adequate for a spacecraft the size and toughness of Starship. Scott Manley also suggested that it might have been better to simply let Starship re-enter the atmosphere in one piece, since this is something it is specifically designed to do, with or without working engines. With failed engines it couldn't do a soft landing in the sea, but minus any other faults it probably would at least have traveled all the way down without breaking up. I think the FAA guidelines on FTS usage might also need to be updated, along with whatever resolution SpaceX decides is necessary to fix its new Block-2 Starship.
You raise a generally interest point. What's the safest way to bring down a failed spacecraft? Is it to deliberately blow it into as many small pieces as possible or just shut things off or vent but let the entire ship crash to earth. Of course, "fail safe" concerns set in. If the ship loses communications with ground control, what should it's electronic brain do? Blow up the ship or shut down/vent and hop for the best?
@ This question will really become important when Starship starts carrying people while still being autonomously navigated. Regardless of whether Ship 33 destroyed itself using its FTS, or the stresses to the body from the fuel leak were just too much for it, perhaps we need an event like this to drive the necessary regulatory reform. Starship poses special concerns in this regard, because it's very large and robust and designed to survive severe atmospheric re-entry stress as part of the requirement of being reusable. Previous tests have shown it can survive re-entry and land even after much of its heat shield has been burned away. The first launch of the full Starship stack (IFT-1) even showed that the biggest standard FTS charges had trouble destroying it. The only comparable craft to Starship is probably the old Space Shuttle. However, it seems that the Shuttle might have been much less robustly built than Starship. The burn-through damage to the wing tiles that Columbia suffered might have been similar to the burn-through that Starship Ship 29 suffered at the end of IFT-4. However, Columbia broke up high in the atmosphere, while Ship 29's burning carcass made a soft touchdown basically intact in the Indian Ocean. Scott Manley mentioned in another comment that no similar precautions to Ship 33's breakup were made when Columbia broke up over the southwestern US in 2003. This might be true, however being made of lighter and less robust materials, I think the breakup of a vehicle like a Space Shuttle perhaps poses a lower risk to people on the ground and to aircraft in the debris zone than Starship, which is built more like a tank and can spread stainless steel debris that doesn't easily burn up over a wide area when it is destroyed. Whatever happens, the design of Starship is what it is. It needs to be tough to do its job, but this toughness can manifest itself in very unexpected ways.
Sadly, in the U.S. for serious change to be made and the public to take note, requires a catastrophe, like bringing down a commercial aircraft. Hopefully FAA and whoever else is involved/responsible will have a more realistic debris field NOTAM for all launches going forward. It should never take tragedy to take action and make change!
@@brianbiddle7590: Main government failure seems to be to allow SpaceX do high risk launches from Texas. If they'd launch from Florida, it would be a lot easier to clear the whole route before launch.
This is not new to Space aircrafts, Starship flight 1 and 2 were grounded upon their destruction in space and reentry, until the company internally provided root cause analysis. Blue Origin is also in the process of doing this, since they did not land their first stage.
very true but half the people commenting on here are idiots and are on here spouting BS because of politics and their hate for Elon. Wretched vermin all of them.
Yeah, this isn't an uncommon occurrence for rocket development programs. The only unusual thing here is the activation of that debris avoidance area far downrange, which is only needed when an upper stage fails at this point in the flight.
Is the ethos of moving fast and breaking things a good use of our airspace? Yes. We can do both at the same time (NOTAMS, MOA’s, warning areas, TFR’s and so on) and have safe airspace. It’s not rocket science…. Or is it? 🤔
There was a TFR issued for that area, purple line on the map. Skyglass. I don't remember the parameters, but I was surprised to see any aircraft in the area at the time, debris or not.
I'm pretty sure spacex doesn't want to kill anyone. This is all new ground we're covering, let's figure out the right path and continue reaching for the stars.
I think it was all handled very well, a good test of the system. Planes diverted quickly, and controllers knew where to put and not put the planes which is obviously the critical detail. It's unfortunate they lost the ship stage like they did, that aspect of the previous flights had been successful. When it comes to the move fast and break things philosophy, i think thats more about the structure of the testing campaigns and breaking things in expected ways. This was obviously an unexpected failure mode. In fact as an example of safe testing, Starship gets alot of criticism for not going orbital yet, that is specifically so they can more safely test the hardware without worrying about what happens if they can't safely de-orbit.
Disagree 100% with your comment. Politics is at the helm of this Satellite debacle. Tell me why sooo many low orbit satellites need to be shot up like there pants are on fire …
Blue Origin is effectively grounded as the don't have another ready rocket to ground and when they do will be overly cautious for fear of failure. SpaceX always expect failure and always have the next rocket ready to fix the faults of the previous and have another go!
Rocket debris events since the late 1950’s was very common. But…..nowadays it is a bigger deal because of the hyper increase of airline traffic since those early days.
Not sure I agree with your points here. The actual risk of issues here is so low. The planes had plenty of time to avoid debris. It was traveling so fast and high up that it took a long time to get to 35k feet or 5 miles. The ship had a RUD at about 140 KM up, traveling at more than 20,000 KM/H.
Exactly this is as much a symptom of the antiquated NOTAM system and the sclerotic TFR system. We need to update the systems so airmen can avoid downrange airspaces for a brief period of time during rocket launches. Which by the way, have as much right to use the airspace as any other user.
@@angiesmith5995 SpaceX DOES build rockets with the highest reliability statistics in the world! Prototypes under development do explode, and SpaceX has always made abundantly clear that it might and will happen... NASA spaceships explode also... but with crew aboard, that's the difference! So, a pretty hasty and ill-informed comment!
Sure, and Musk still hasn't figured out how to make his Teslas safer for the owners and traveling public that encounters one of his Tesla autopilot experiments.
Definite concern --- What FAA actions were taken during the shuttle Columbia disaster? Since that was a scheduled re-entry was there already NOTAM in place for the flight path? What does FAA do if it is other space debris coming down or does NASA inform them of this and FAA puts out warning?
One problem with many test flights of rockets is that they can have a very uncertain launch time. Blue Origin had a 4-hour window for their test launch on several days before they finally launched. The downrange NOTAM cannot stop traffic for all that time, but they should have a notification in real time when the rocket launches.
@@rogueninja1685 NASA and the Air Force (now Space Force) did not allow SpaceX to do their testing of Starship and SuperHeavy from the Canaveral launch sites because the SpaceX development and testing plan is too risky.
Yep. I've seen reports that the corridor was in a notam that could be activated if required. They should have familiarised themselves with it and have a plan if it's activated.
No, the launch NOTAMS only affect a small area near the launch site. This 'disassembly' incident occurred hundeds of miles downrange. I suspect the FAA will have to fix that now.
For the entire flight path to have a NOTAM, you'd have a swath from Texas to the Indian Ocean, and for operational rockets all the way around the globe. Given the frequency of space launches, the low likelihood of failures at later stages of flight, how most of this path is under a vehicle operating outside of the atmosphere, and how even a few seconds more of a burn can shift the impact point hundreds of miles, this is not practical. Predicting where rocket debris will fall during flight is as complex as determining where space junk will land, with the larger area of the latter offset by the junk will hit the ground while the rocket usually will not outside the designated areas. Typically NOTAMs are issued for the early phase of flight and where stages are expected to land after burnout. For Starship, the first stage returns to the launch site and so is covered by the first NOTAM shown here, while a second NOTAM should have been issued for the Indian Ocean splashdown zone. Going forward, I expect the FAA will reevaluate this procedure for developmental vehicles like Starship, but for operational rockets the existing system has worked well for decades.
For the massive number of launches Spacex has(138 in 2024 alone), they are by far the least incident prone. Yes flights were disrupted. I remember getting my flight disrupted (held in the air for nearly an hour, along with many others) just so a certain political leader could get a haircut. Spacex’s record is very good. Not perfect, but the best in space launch history.
SpaceX has issued a statement after today’s 7th Starship test flight. “Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship (upper stage), leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas. Starship flew within its designated launch corridor - as all U.S. launches do to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water and in the air. Any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area. As always, success comes from what we learn, and this flight test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary. Data review is already underway as we seek out root cause. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests. The ship and booster for Starship’s eighth flight test are built and going through prelaunch testing and preparing to fly as we continue a rapid iterative development process to build a fully and rapidly reusable space transportation system.”
Or, in other words: "We blew up another taxpayer funded toy, but fortunately it blew up where it was meant to. We think that it blew up because it was faulty. Hopefully we'll figure it out so it doesn't blow up and eighth time. The FAA is going to help us because nobody that worked on the hugely successful Saturn 5 programme over 50 years ago is available."
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Luckily the beauty of the USA is, the innovators, and the doer's accomplish great things. While the keyboard warriors and naysayers accomplish nothing, but have every right to their opinions... Opinion are like Assholes, everyone's got one... 🤣 New Glenn also had a catastrophic failure of their booster. Better read up on USA space development. Better to keep your ignorance quiet, rather than put it on display for all to see...
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Come out of your moms basement, NASA is batting 000 average with their multiple recent failures. SpaceX to the rescue for the astronauts stuck in space...
How many millions people live in the predefined hazard areas which include most of the Caribbean islands ?? What are the risk mitigation measures taken in these hazard areas?? Are the local people informed ??
Which direction in the North Hemisphere can you get to space without crossing over airliners? The FAA seems in search of something to do besides upgrade their systems to compensate for progress.
The FAA manages airspace and does it well. They require both aircraft manufacturers and rocket companies to properly investigate all accidents to help prevent further accidents. In this case there were no people on board so the concern is not the safety of the rocket itself but the disruption to air traffic in the area which is costly and holds some risk if people are not properly notified in time. In this case all they require is that SpaceX identify the cause of the accident and take some steps to rectify it. It is not nearly as serious as an aircraft accident where repeated incidents are far more likely to result in deaths. For SpaceX this is not new or unexpected or even particularly disruptive as they would investigate and rectify the issues regardless of the FAAs intervention. The only concern for them is whether the turnaround on the acceptance of the documentation happens in a reasonable timeframe.
I mean, there’s virtually no orbital trajectory on the planet that you can perform without overflying commercial aviation if (at any point suborbital) the vehicle fails and reenters the atmosphere. Like, none. So when you say “slow Elon down” - first of all, the company is SpaceX (and I think throwing his name in there constantly clearly shows your political frustrations) second, the vehicle has achieved nominal insertion on almost every flight. This just happens to be the largest rocket in history - no one cares when a sounding rocket fails. Unfortunately testing is required for everything, regardless of size / mass (or political siding.) So, I’m not really sure what you’re trying to “slow down” here. Draw an ascent path / orbital trajectory across any point from the United States, and by the time it achieves near-orbital speeds, you’ve got a path halfway around the world. That’s just basic orbital mechanics, and would apply to any rocket.
If by nominal insertion you mean "into the ocean", then yes it has achieved nominal insertion in most of it's flights and managed to hit the correct ocean. It has not done an orbit. A NOTAM for all points the craft could potentially come down would be trivial to issue, it's literally only for a few minutes.
Slowing down refers to SpaceX policy of putting out hurried protypes in quick succession and having someone else pay for the delays and disruptions. They are taking unnecessary risks because they want to get to their target fast, but FAA does not have to allow that. And while orbital rockets fly around the world, these Starship test launches are not orbital. Just forcing them to launch from Space Coast would already make it very unlikely that debris falls on inhabited areas, and would disturb a lot less planes.
@@JariJuslin none of the flights intended to be orbital by design. Considering how many things are being tested each flight it's unfair to say the flight was a failure when they do accomplish many goals during the test flight. Multiple starships are being produced at one time which allows for rapid iteration and testing. Nothing needs to slow down.
Two space shuttles blew up and they weren’t prototypes. Any rocket can fail on launch or reentry. New glen could have. It’s shocking that the FAA doesn’t have notams for the entire launch and reentry area since technically every rocket launch could pose a danger of debris to aircraft.
I think the people jumping to SpaceX's defense are technically correct, but missing the point. SpaceX is mostly fine here, but the FAA is not. The fact that all these aviation professionals were not aware of the launch and potential for issues in that area is a real problem.
It's a SpaceX rocket... It is SpaceX's responsibility. SpaceX, not the FAA endangered thousands of people. Blaming the FAA is like blaming the police because drunk egomaniac fired a gun into the air.
@@eikopoppy29 the Notam was posted for the launch but as Juan pointed out it just doesn’t cover the area that could be effected should something go wrong.
Juan please also announce the facts "As of 15 January 2025, rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 439 times, with 436 full mission successes, three failures,[a] and one partial failure. "... this is just stunning and on a different level than NASA .. now or in the past.
Let's not over-react and then over-regulate bleeding edge rocket technology testing. We need to innovate. We need to take risks. Small ones, but we need to accept them. We are lucky to have a reckless billionaire who want's to get humans into space. Let's not treat him like John Galt.
Reckless billionaires are the biggest danger to society we are not lucky at all. The starship system is a giant waste of resources. Accidents like this put the public at risk with zero public benefit, why tolerate it?
That is normal for the FAA to allow the space companies to do the investigation and send there findings to the FAA. That is what happens in a mishap investigation.
@@markevans2294 it is already included in their procedures- ‘preventative actions’. The absolute last thing America needs is to create more government (which is wasteful and inept in every single thing it does).
Watching Scott Manley's video there was a question. Did Starship explode, or was the Self destruction activated? Would it be better to control the whole ship, in one piece, to the sea instead of having these thousands of pieces
Couple reasons "dive it into the ocean in one piece" doesn't work in this scenario. First, the last telemetry frame we as the public saw had it at 146km in altitude (almost 480,000ft), and at a velocity of 21317 km/hr (~13,245 mi/hr), and second, it was losing engines (that same last frame was down to 1 engine out of 6), meaning it didn't have a way to divert to a controlled reentry. In uncontrolled flight, an FTS based termination is preferred because it's designed to break the vehicle up into smaller pieces (and, violently, expend/disperse all remaining fuel and oxidizer, so it's not also a massive bomb coming back down). Especially at those altitudes and speeds, that gives a higher chance that the vast majority of the vehicle burns up during reentry, eliminating the majority of the risk associated with it.
Juan, the NOTAM is only issued for the Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) that area is near the launch site. The DRA will not be shown in any NOTAMs because they will not know if and when/where the vehicle may have a mishap. AIRCRAFT HAZARD AREA (AHA)- Used by ATC to segregate air traffic from a launch vehicle, reentry vehicle, amateur rocket, jettisoned stages, hardware, or falling debris generated by failures associated with any of these activities. An AHA is designated via NOTAM as either a TFR or stationary ALTRV. Unless otherwise specified, the vertical limits of an AHA are from the surface to unlimited.
I have seen images online of what look like the pre-defined DRA areas, and the area where the debris fell was named DRA4. It looked specific to the Starship flight plan, rather than a general purpose definition. Do you know how wide the distribution of that information is? Seems like flights going through that area during this time should have been briefed on that... or at least that controllers should have been aware of this corridor and event and been ready for it
@greyhame Correct, I also saw those. I'm not familiar in the development of how these AREAs are determined, but my understanding is that they use some kind of NASA software that does the calculation based on the launch trajectory. The Controllers who's airspace has the DRA activated will see it in their scope. The issue is none of the pilots entering these possible DRAs know this beforehand.
Yes I believe so. The FAA considers any failure a reason to ground until an investigation is conducted EVEN if that mishap was landing or catching a booster. The FAA doesn’t care if it exploded going up or coming down. Which to me is kind of dumb that if your booster blows up above your barge in the middle of the ocean, that means you can’t launch another one. I mean the booster went up just fine lol
I’m surprised a no fly zone path wasn’t organised for at least the first few test flights. In Perth Western Australia a few outbound flights were being re routed around the landing area off WA.
Starship 2nd stage blew up in nearly the same location at nearly the same altitude (400,000 some thousand feet) during test flight 2 back in 2023 . Where was all the gnashing of teeth back then? At this point, FAA issues the launch license and is aware of the time of launch and the path the spacecraft will travel. They are also aware that if there is an anomaly with the vehicle the flight termination system will activate and destroy the craft which will cause debris. SpaceX did everything required to meet FAA criteria for a launch
@@gordonrichardson2972 Oh, it is absolutely true. A 5 minute search would provide you with multiple sources. Here, want the video? RUclips search the title: " SpaceX Starship Explosion Filmed from the Florida Keys! " posted by the Astronomy_Live channel.
It is super hard to judge distances when at altitude. But those operating at FL4000 and above would have to be very careful (extra zero not a typo). I'm not sure exactly when the debris would have gotten down to the class A area. I presume SpaceX could have figured that out pretty promptly. But getting such out of band information to controllers quickly is stupendous hard.
I’ve never understood calling it a RUD. We don’t say that the Titanic took a rapid unscheduled dive or that a car took a rapid unscheduled course change. Call a spade a spade: the rocket failed and exploded.
How far can air traffic control broadcast? Only to the planes on a certain frequency? How are multiple areas coordinated when info needs to be disseminated? By this phone?
I think it was Scott Manly that mentioned this might have been a deliberate action by the flight termination software of Starship due to loss of engine control. There may have been an O2 or Methane leak that caused the engines to shut down. NASA didn't have to put up with this as much in the 1950s as there were far fewer flights. But they had their fair share of "learning experiences".
at the point of loss of engine control (engines shutting down on telemetry) spacex didnt have any communication with starship, last thing you want is for it to change its trajectory with that last engine still running, pointing it in a direction that could possibly make it crash land in an area that has people living in it, so blowing it up automatically (FAA flight termination) is the best thing for it, debris was 100 km up, and from what I've heard from people that done the math, majority of the debris would have landed in the atlantic.
It wasn’t due to loss of engine control. Somebody cross referenced the timestamps of the video of it exploding with the actual telemetry, and it continued flying for several minutes after they lost contact, and the engines were already gone.
@@michaelimbesi2314 Just off the cuff reasoning from someone that played too much KSP, they might have the FTS's conditions set in a way that, if it's already "in space" at over 100km, it waits until it's at a negative vertical speed, and possibly considerably closer to that 100km line, before detonating. That would minimize the risk of "loft" of debris up into the regions covered by low earth orbit (the ISS is at about 400km). They were at 146km and still had a positive vertical speed at the last telemetry frame I saw. The few minutes between that and the explosion might've been just enough to get over the peak. At those altitudes, it's also much less likely to break up from any failure *except* an explosion until it's fallen back into the atmosphere a fair bit. Fairing separations tend to happen in the 60-80km regime, and payloads are *far* more fragile than starship.
Nah I don't think you can blame FAA. Before rocket launches are commonplace, FAA DID close down airspace for a large swath of the rocket's path. But as launch frequency increased, it's not feasible to close down that much airspace. That would actually be an obstacle to rocket development. The current system of NOTAM for near the launch site, and debris response area further away in case of mishaps, works. Everything we see from this incidence is things working as intended. The only criticism is it seems airlines were not aware of these debris response zones, or did not plan for them. That's why a number of fuel emergencies were declared.
@@stay_at_home_astronaut I watch a lot of his stuff, this one caught me off guard. Let's hope the latter "sometimes" remains more of an uncharacteristic deviation from form. We, the viewers, for the type of channel this is, should not be able to tell that Juan, seemingly, is viscerally not a fan of Elon. In fact, this is exactly in the weird zone: if it is unavoidable that a presenter's political and personal views modulate a given piece of content's presentation, it would have been less jarring if the video began by him adding out loud, after the t-minus, "and so this is all pretty off the cuff because Elon really rubs me the wrong way, and today his world collided with mine, and so I'm covering this one hot". The problem is that I think Juan himself doesn't yet understand this (that the above quote would be true about himself and his response here) or at least didn't at time of recording.
@@JoshWalker1This is the dumbest comment I have ever seen, Space Shuttle Colombia and Challenger disasters could have impacted planes,flying at the time, both under republican presidents and administrations , and politics is the issue of someone reporting facts.
Is it known what altitude the Starship was at when it broke apart? I heard it mentioned that a lot of these pieces burned up prior to the lower traffic altitudes. Obviously the Challenger in 2003 had many pieces make it all the way to earth but wasnt sure of this case.
@@BuzzyStreet Any links? A video of a Tesla driving into anything would be front page news. Look at the glee of this RUclips channel getting out news of a rocket explosion. To the contrary, people do not post vids of their Tesla doing the driving since it has become so routine.
@Steve-Richter Here are just two. Florida - the vehicle missed an intersection and drove into a field, an orange grove, IIRC. One fatality, and one severely injured. Sunnyvale, CA - vehicle rear ended a stopped vehicle. Fatality.
Juan, thanks for this insightful review of this situation. Are there not alerts when something launches from Cape Canaveral, such as New Glenn-1 earlier in the day?
Seems more like a notam issue. Anything can happen during a space flight mission especially a prototype vehicle no airliners should be in the flight path or underneath it or above it at any point until it is in orbit
I disagree 100% with your premise. The problem is that the FAA does not extend the no play zone far enough. We are going to lunch rockets and they’re gonna come from Boca Chica and elsewhere. It’s just reality and moving fast is important. It’s the FAA that needs to adjust not companieslike SpaceX or blue origin or rocket lab or whatever
FAA does not appear to issue NOTAMs in international airspace, only domestic. Correct me if I'm wrong. Seems that perhaps we do need more cooperation between the relevant agencies of affected countries when rockets are launched. Also, appears to me that there was never an immediate danger to any of the aircraft. The debris was identified and communicated across the relevant ATC and thus down to the aircraft. Almost everyone took the necessary actions.
Actually the NOTAM's were mainly because the shuttle had the ability to abort to multiple sights around the World. So, the NOTAM was issued because the shuttle may fly through the airspace to land at an abort airfield.
As in all preplanned launches the plans and associated costs were already done. That occurred during the flight planning phase of every legal flight on that day. That is the purpose of flight planning. That is why it is incredibly difficult to do anything last minute that requires a NOTAM.
Its genuinely normal, the best the FAA can do is evaluate the analysis and solutions provided. They should get sound engineered explanations and if thats possible then its very positive, SpaceX has to explain themselves in clear language.
Seeing as how Boeing has massively failed in both the Comercial aviation side, and Starliner you are really willing to let a slimeball company like SpaceX and Musk do it too? Boeing is not the only corruption out there.
@@johns5558 The FAA can also bring in outside help for analysis, as has happened in the past. People who can "fix" what was lacking in the SpaceX attempt.
It's going to be interesting to learn if the vehicle broke up due to natural causes, or was it the flight termination / self destruct system that did it. If it was the latter, you’ve got to question whether it should be allowed to activate so close to land / active airspace. It could have been better to get it out further over the mid atlantic before triggering the self destruct so less chance of damage.
I understand it was the FTS that activated and destroyed the ship. As for how high is the best, there's probably a sweet spot. Too high and the debris can be scattered over a large area. Too low and too many pieces hit the ground. Just like the bear's porridge, you have to get it just right.
Once the engines are out the rocket is a ballistic object subject to gravity and the effect of aerodynamic drag within the atmosphere. The rocket is at that point simply following a ballistic path. If the rocket didn't break up it might well have travelled to Africa before it crashed into the ground. That is, the path the rocket took was not within SpaceX hands to control or alter other than blowing it up!
Boeing to Elon: "LOL - I'll bet SpaceX is gonna be grounded for a year for this..." Elon to Boeing: "I'll see your bet and raise you 500mil". Boeing: Folds.
I assume the falling pieces can be as large as a House/Bus and as small as a marble? That's a lot of stuff. I wonder if there is much effort to pick up the floating pieces?
This does have the usual feel that aviation is special and precious and beyond any kind of logical examination. A few flights were inconvenienced. So what? Most of the inconvenience is a result of poor procedures in the aviation industry. Rockets fly over water. If there's a chance of them crashing into a populated area, they blow themselves up. Unlike aviation that routinely flies over dense populations. The residents of Lockerbie weren't asked to hold or go elsewhere. The people in the apartment block weren't asked to move out for the day while Concord fell out of the sky. If you invented aviation today aircraft wouldn't be allowed to overfly land. And rightly so. People on the ground are required to risk their lives so that rich people don't have to take the train. We only think that's acceptable because we're used to it. It's not, it never was, it never will be. It burns when someone in aviation says with a straight face that something must be done because some flights were diverted. Particularly when that someone has reported so many deaths on the ground that are the result of pilots choosing the safest place for themselves over the safest place for the people on the ground.
What Elon is doing is undeniably more important to society than a handful of diverted flights full of holidayers. The flight window is very small, it exploded only 9-10 minutes into flight and was going to shut off its engines at that point anyway. The FAA is responsible for coming up with proper NOTAMs that explain the issue more clearly. Managing a 10 minute disruption as a double redundant safeguard is hardly some earth-shattering feat, and you admitted the only issue here is the NOTAM. Don't say to slow Elon down when he's the only reason we have a space industry in 2025.
Musk is doing f-all at spacex aside from putting his name on it. The money comes from the government, r&d is performed by scientists who actually know what they're doing, and the basis of their self-landing tech comes from the McDonnell MD-X. What Musk is doing is inflating his ego on Twitter and meddling in elections around the world to help right-wing extremists. Not sure how that is in any way important to society.
@@stringpicker5468 No. We need to get away from Communist control BS. Tell idiots they are idiots and move on. That doesn't take any time. Humanity must stop with this Communist crap. It's a Communist control tactic to get the people worrying about paying for bread, so they don't have time to worry about anything else.
@@Ometecuhtli Didn't reply to the last guy who didn't read my comment, but now I'm kind of annoyed. I very clearly, in my first line no less, said my comparison was Elon's space flights vs diverted holiday flights. How you all got to "why isn't elon fixing all of earth's problems first" is bizarre.
Not your most balanced report. At 5:22 you show 7 days of possible closures and imply that each of those was a launch "Every time they launch one of these rockets". All but one of those were canceled and launches from Texas are rare right now. If you want to talk about economics, maybe Jet Blue should load more fuel if they don't want to divert. The launch was not a secret and the launch window was only 98 minutes. Does not take a supercomputer to look at what flights will be crossing the flight path.
That crews weren't aware is a failing of the FAA. This shouldn't be more difficult than avoiding a thunderstorm. And airlines need to be able to share the airspace too.
@@Raiders1917 Not necessary. FAA is already adept at dynamically rerouting traffic around large tracts of storms. They just don't get surprised by it like they did here, where they knew in advance. Granted maybe here the width of the swath was wider than expected, but they can learn to adjust for that.
Juan, my understanding is that the FAA has not grounded SpaceX. However SpaceX's starship rocket has been grounded. Please be more precise in your headlines. You also implied that the only NOTAM issued was for the exclusion zone around the launch site. There would have definitely been more that one NOTAM. (The landing zone would also have an exclusion zone). My understanding is that there were also NOTAMs issued for warning zones under the flightpath, extending beyond the Turks and Caicos Islands. (You even showed the red zone in your screenshot of Scott Manley's video). For the NOTAM you did show, you said "it looks as if this is a regularly scheduled NOTAM for every time they launch one of these SpaceX rockets out of Boca Chica". Actually all those times are their launch windows for this one test flight. (Starship test launches are still fairly rare, and delays due to weather or other factors are common, so it is normal practise to schedule multiple launch windows). You are definitely showing a lack of detailed research and accuracy in this video.
@@robertscott2269It's misleading because SpaceX has more than one type of rocket. They also have Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and they have proven track records. Therefore, it's completely inaccurate to say all SpaceX flights are grounded, when only the Starship flights are grounded. I expect better from Juan than this It's akin to saying all Boeing products are grounded if some brand new test aircraft crashed.
@@robertscott2269 I have seen no reports to suggest that SpaceX's Falcon 9 has been grounded. (And Falcon 9 launches are much more common than Starship launches).
This is the reason to improve air traffic control technology. NOTAM’s should follow the vehicle going East until the altitude is high enough for the debris to burn up while interning the atmosphere. SpaceX StarShip is following the same cadence as they did for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Their philosophy of design it, build it, push it, break it, learn from it, re-design it, rinse and repeat is the fastest way to a man rated vehicle. So far SpaceX has had a good record with safety. Was this flight a “Near Miss”? I would say yes if the airspace down range wasn’t clear. Is it possible to divert all flights from a potential debris field? It would if we improved air traffic control. With a centralized DCS, StarLink, and ground monitoring stations, it would be possible. Still, to make the improvements will take time.
Pilot to passengers: “If you look to your left you will be able to see an exploding spaceship. Thank you.”
Thought the same!
lol. Well played.
"Unscheduled disassembly" thank you😅
Perfect!
US tax payers if you look to your left you will see $300,000,000 of subsidies given to Elon.
I have been reported that there was another NOTAM for the Starship that covers all along and across the islands. Never found it. But if it's real, then maybe these pilots and airlines didn't take it into consideration when fuel planning. Does anybody know and can source it?
Thanks Juan for your report.
Lots of people are saying there was a known potential debris area, but nobody has sourced any Notams.
The hazard areas are put out in NOTAM and the Debris Response Areas are only activated if theirs a mishap, they aren’t put out until their is a reason to activate it.
@@LISRAREF Maybe they should be better safe than sorry, and consider debris will fall at any launch. The danger time window is only a few minutes.
@@Baldorceteit’s only a few minutes from launch, but these launches normally have an hour or two window for each attempt. No way to predict exactly when to launch, so they would have to overprotect. Most of the hazard areas are two or three hour blocks. Now if they put out the debris areas as part of NOTAM, what would change? Would pilots/dispatchers flight plan around them? Would they put on additional fuel to allow for delay if it goes active? Would anyone do anything different at all?
Not enough time to react…
Thanks!
Odds are this will be reversed Monday at 12pm EST.
🤣🤣🤣
12:07...he has to finish his bit on stage!
Yup. 100%
The FFA has behaved like they don't have very good protocals for approving these flights... it's act particularly stupid this last 4 years
Fingers crossed 🤞
I was listening to San Juan Center live, and it was a crazy day due to a full runway closure at SJU earlier in the afternoon. There were 16 aircraft on approach at the time of the debris mayhem. Major kudos to the controllers at ZSU for handling a day with two very complex situations and keeping everyone safe!
On top of that, Santo Domingo FIR stopped accepting aircraft from ZSU and ZMA, and both Punta Cana and San Juan airports had full ramps as well. Just glad it all worked out.
San Juan and ATC did a bloody good job getting on top of the problem and handling so many aircraft.
Worked at Air Traffic Control in New Zealand in the late 1990's. We have the 2nd largest Oceanic Flight Information Region in the world.
When the Space Shuttle was launched we would have a no fly zone block of airspace 2000 x 4000km in the southern Pacific Ocean west of Easter Island. This was the aera that any large remaining debris of the external fuel tank would fall.
Thanks for the details. That's what Juan would call 'an abundance of caution'.
This was a nominal fallout area, not a hazard area in case of malfunction.
Crazy cool detail, thanks for sharing
That’s pretty cool. Thx for sharing
Fallout area anticipated, but not a breakup of a TEST vehicle at high speed, and atmosphere? Paid to think back then.
The FAA allows rocket companies to investigate themselves because they are submitting these flights *specifically* as test flights within a test and development program, and so failures are somewhat expected and are considered acceptable. The only real type of unacceptable failure are where a rocket fails in a way that breaches the pre-defined safety requirements in a way that either endangers or gets sufficiently close to endangering parts of the test range. In such cases the FAA usually gets more involved whereas in cases like these that stayed within the established bounds but still had some level of risk the FAA requires that at least *some* investigation be done but is satisfied that the company is probably operating in good faith due to it being within the already established bounds for margins of safety. If the failure was more minor than this such as with Blue Origin's landing attempt it's likely no investigation would be required at all, as with previous Starship failures.
Because these are not operational vehicles the FAA is only really concerned with public safety as it pertains to the risk to life and property that testing campaigns pose and companies must already comply with fairly stringent safety planning to even be granted license to launch. So long as companies are found to have been honest and good faith with their planning and contingencies the FAA generally tries to stay out of the way to allow for testing so long as public safety is guaranteed
Thanks for your opinion. Would you kindly tell us a something about Elon that you don't like? Just so that everyone knows you're not one of the crows of mindless fash fanbois goathing for their idol. Thanks.
@AnneOseraccount this isnt an opinion lol, its a fact
And this is not a good thing. Good faith doesn't cut it, it didn't in Boeing's case.
@AnneOseraccount. .and what is your official title in the Elon Hater Club?
I'd bet the Engineer's at Space X know a lot more about what they built and what failed than anyone at the FAA.
This is a routine grounding pending investigation - this happened after the first couple Starship failures as well.
Thank you. I wondered about that.
SpaceX isn’t grounded, Starship is. Notable difference considering SpaceX does 30x as many falcon launches (unaffected) as starship launches.
Yeah, but Elon musk! Something something….
Yes, SpaceX will trigger the Kessler Syndrome before most people even know what it is.
The Falcon launches seem sane. Starship just seems nuts.
@@Ryan-mq2mi❄️ alert ^
@blancolirio I am surprised to see a stereotypical "RUclips influencer" type Clickbait title and thumbnail from a respected channel like this. I am surprised that JB is not familiar at all with the test regime. I had expected to see something substantial about the lack of the FAA passing on what any of us space honniests could have predicted was a high probability event. Also, no reporting AT ALL about what happened to Blue Origin's First stage that had a planned landing down range but didn't/ Why no reporting probably was no cool video and audio to attract clicks.
Flight Ops Supervisor here. I was on shift on that day. The only intel and info was provided by ATC. No Notams or PIREP, so no ideia of the affected area and the what to expect. Thx for sharing
@@paulocapelas2881 what was the affected area?
Which makes me even more upset about Ellie in Space'a video about this with an airline pilot.
She made it seem like the pilots were aware of the hazard and took precautions, they did not. The multiple low fuel maydays and diversions say otherwise.
For those upset that these businesses are conducting their own ‘mishap investigation’ - the company already has FAA approved (at least indirectly) procedures that govern every aspect from manufacture to launch to recovery etc….the company also has procedures covering problems and mishaps. If this incident caused fatalities the NTSB would take over the entire investigation. The FAA will be closely involved with the ‘mishap investigation’ including reviewing the procedures and their findings and ‘preventative actions’ going forward. This is actually the best, fastest, most efficient and most thorough method of investigating this matter.
Thanks Juan for mentioning Scott Manley. His channel is top quality like yours just slightly different topics
Can the FAA also investigate why New York approach control is only 48% staffed, endangering thousands of lives every day?
There is no need to investigate... the reasons are well known and not in dispute. The FAA is underfunded for its missions.
Nope. That would actually accomplish something. They’re not in the business of actually doing anything worthwhile.
Just wait until the FAA puts a strong emphasis on DEI hiring. 😅😂
@@mkay1957 You saw Juan's last video, right? Juan was not saying a lot.
@@Craigjordan121Not the FAA's fault. They are horrifyingly underfunded, going back to Reagan.
I listened to VAS Aviation earlier and was happy to see Juan posting as well. So much to unpack, nice to have good info.
It's not good info. It's mostly clickbait backed by inaccurate information. Scott Manley is wrong, and Juan completely ignored any statements by Musk about what actually happened.
The Boca Chica NOTAM is for the jettisoned hot staging ring and alternate landing site for the booster.
Agreed. The NOTAM was not sufficient to cover the expectable outcomes of this test flight. I suspect that FAA will be changing how it does business now that people who had no clue are aware of the risks that have existed for decades and especially the last few months or years with several new rockets from several companies.
This was clearly a rushed clickbait video. What little information he included wasn’t even correct.
The NOTAM at 4:33 that says “DANGEROUS AREA FOR FALLING DEBRIS OF ROCKET STARSHIP FLT-7”?
@@Cris1s989This entire channel is interpreting breaking news, and he’s about as qualified as you could reasonably expect to find.
@@jimslimm6090I would be more inclined to believe that if Elon hadn't basically just bought an election, a pardon, and a best friend all in one.
There goes another $100 million in taxpayer dollars. I’m starting to think SpaceX is going to miss that goal of having a man on Mars by 2024 😂
Another commercial pilot said diverting around known issues is routine and happens all the time. The starship flight path and potential debris field was established and announced ahead of time. When the rocket was lost Spacex communicated with the FAA so they could inform aircraft and steer them clear of the pre-announced, mapped, risk area. So which is it, are pilots and the ATC, professionals who know how to respond to issues they were briefed on or not?
How do you divert around an issue that spans hundreds of miles? The planes aren’t going around it, they can’t go over it or under it. How can you be 100% certain at what point all the debris has fallen out of the sky before it’s safe to cross this line again? If one plane hits a piece of this debris the results could be catastrophic
@@Bugzapper-t9j you do know when it will be though so you just wait for a bit and then fly on like normal.
I think Scott Manley speculated that the new Block-2 Ship 33 Starship explosion may have been caused by the FTS (Flight Termination System) explosives being triggered by Starship itself, after it lost most steering capability by losing the three of its six Raptor engines that can gimbal. SpaceX might have programmed Starship to trigger FTS based on FAA guidelines that may no longer be adequate for a spacecraft the size and toughness of Starship. Scott Manley also suggested that it might have been better to simply let Starship re-enter the atmosphere in one piece, since this is something it is specifically designed to do, with or without working engines. With failed engines it couldn't do a soft landing in the sea, but minus any other faults it probably would at least have traveled all the way down without breaking up. I think the FAA guidelines on FTS usage might also need to be updated, along with whatever resolution SpaceX decides is necessary to fix its new Block-2 Starship.
100%, upper stage Starship is a rocket, but it's capable of gliding and ditching if needed, guidelines in-between airplanes and rockets would be nice
You raise a generally interest point. What's the safest way to bring down a failed spacecraft? Is it to deliberately blow it into as many small pieces as possible or just shut things off or vent but let the entire ship crash to earth.
Of course, "fail safe" concerns set in. If the ship loses communications with ground control, what should it's electronic brain do? Blow up the ship or shut down/vent and hop for the best?
Unreliable death trap.
That’s not what happened here, but thanks for playing. Elon has already clarified that this was an unexpected explosion of the ship, NOT FTS.
@ This question will really become important when Starship starts carrying people while still being autonomously navigated. Regardless of whether Ship 33 destroyed itself using its FTS, or the stresses to the body from the fuel leak were just too much for it, perhaps we need an event like this to drive the necessary regulatory reform.
Starship poses special concerns in this regard, because it's very large and robust and designed to survive severe atmospheric re-entry stress as part of the requirement of being reusable. Previous tests have shown it can survive re-entry and land even after much of its heat shield has been burned away. The first launch of the full Starship stack (IFT-1) even showed that the biggest standard FTS charges had trouble destroying it.
The only comparable craft to Starship is probably the old Space Shuttle. However, it seems that the Shuttle might have been much less robustly built than Starship. The burn-through damage to the wing tiles that Columbia suffered might have been similar to the burn-through that Starship Ship 29 suffered at the end of IFT-4. However, Columbia broke up high in the atmosphere, while Ship 29's burning carcass made a soft touchdown basically intact in the Indian Ocean.
Scott Manley mentioned in another comment that no similar precautions to Ship 33's breakup were made when Columbia broke up over the southwestern US in 2003. This might be true, however being made of lighter and less robust materials, I think the breakup of a vehicle like a Space Shuttle perhaps poses a lower risk to people on the ground and to aircraft in the debris zone than Starship, which is built more like a tank and can spread stainless steel debris that doesn't easily burn up over a wide area when it is destroyed.
Whatever happens, the design of Starship is what it is. It needs to be tough to do its job, but this toughness can manifest itself in very unexpected ways.
Good to see the return of our old friend KABLAMMO. If however a plane had been brought down we would be feeling very differently about this.
One would think that they would have this area already clear. I feel like this a government fail.
If a frog had wings, it wouldn't drag it's butt!
@raptman5425 Wise words indeed. You can always find the appropriate aphorism in the works of Confucius.
Sadly, in the U.S. for serious change to be made and the public to take note, requires a catastrophe, like bringing down a commercial aircraft. Hopefully FAA and whoever else is involved/responsible will have a more realistic debris field NOTAM for all launches going forward. It should never take tragedy to take action and make change!
@@brianbiddle7590: Main government failure seems to be to allow SpaceX do high risk launches from Texas. If they'd launch from Florida, it would be a lot easier to clear the whole route before launch.
This is not new to Space aircrafts, Starship flight 1 and 2 were grounded upon their destruction in space and reentry, until the company internally provided root cause analysis. Blue Origin is also in the process of doing this, since they did not land their first stage.
exactly
very true but half the people commenting on here are idiots and are on here spouting BS because of politics and their hate for Elon. Wretched vermin all of them.
Yeah, this isn't an uncommon occurrence for rocket development programs. The only unusual thing here is the activation of that debris avoidance area far downrange, which is only needed when an upper stage fails at this point in the flight.
It was also a completely new version of Starship. The failure wasn’t that unexpected.
But the thumbnail said chaos
Is the ethos of moving fast and breaking things a good use of our airspace?
Yes. We can do both at the same time (NOTAMS, MOA’s, warning areas, TFR’s and so on) and have safe airspace. It’s not rocket science…. Or is it? 🤔
There was a TFR issued for that area, purple line on the map. Skyglass. I don't remember the parameters, but I was surprised to see any aircraft in the area at the time, debris or not.
I'm pretty sure spacex doesn't want to kill anyone. This is all new ground we're covering, let's figure out the right path and continue reaching for the stars.
"All new ground" that NASA pioneered in the 60's?
Yeah, right.
What star specifically?
At the moment, they are reaching for aircraft full of innocent passengers, definitely the wrong path. BTW Elon Musk is a drugged up nut job.
SpaceX definitely doesn't want to kill anyone. They would like to avoid doing so unless that would adversely affect profits.
Nasa didn't build any rocket like this. This is literally a new type of spacecraft.
I think it was all handled very well, a good test of the system. Planes diverted quickly, and controllers knew where to put and not put the planes which is obviously the critical detail. It's unfortunate they lost the ship stage like they did, that aspect of the previous flights had been successful. When it comes to the move fast and break things philosophy, i think thats more about the structure of the testing campaigns and breaking things in expected ways. This was obviously an unexpected failure mode. In fact as an example of safe testing, Starship gets alot of criticism for not going orbital yet, that is specifically so they can more safely test the hardware without worrying about what happens if they can't safely de-orbit.
Disagree 100% with your comment. Politics is at the helm of this Satellite debacle. Tell me why sooo many low orbit satellites need to be shot up like there pants are on fire …
Is Blue Origin grounded? Yesterday New Glenn first stage lost telemetry during reentry at 85000 feet and we don't know what happened to it?
They know. You don't. It's an important difference.
Blue Origin is effectively grounded as the don't have another ready rocket to ground and when they do will be overly cautious for fear of failure. SpaceX always expect failure and always have the next rocket ready to fix the faults of the previous and have another go!
@ You miss my point. Wasn't the BO RUD as consequential to aviation an nautical safety as the SX RUD?
@@markthomason2754 Less traffic since BO was out over the open Atlantic on a lesser traveled corridor.
@@matthewbeasley7765 Agreed, but both flight paths were to be clear of air traffic
Rocket debris events since the late 1950’s was very common. But…..nowadays it is a bigger deal because of the hyper increase of airline traffic since those early days.
And firing eastwards from BocaChica is far far worse than from Cape Canaveral in terms of population flyover and air traffic downrange !!!
And the fact that this thing is a flying skyscraper....
Not sure I agree with your points here. The actual risk of issues here is so low. The planes had plenty of time to avoid debris. It was traveling so fast and high up that it took a long time to get to 35k feet or 5 miles. The ship had a RUD at about 140 KM up, traveling at more than 20,000 KM/H.
I don't know why you're outraged. People got paid both to authorise this flight and to make emergency procedures - which worked.
The starship was approx. 150 kilometers in altitude and traveling at 30,000 KPH when it blew up. It's not hard to figure out how it got so far away.
So what? It ended up falling to the ground.
@@joso5554 ...in the middle of the ocean. You people need to learn a thing or two about ballistics.
your last questions at the end of the video nailed it!! :-)
Exactly this is as much a symptom of the antiquated NOTAM system and the sclerotic TFR system. We need to update the systems so airmen can avoid downrange airspaces for a brief period of time during rocket launches. Which by the way, have as much right to use the airspace as any other user.
These are both systems developed around 1960. I think an updated technology is long overdue.
When you can divert 10s or 100s of other flights with a single launch, you have greater responsibility. This is basic proportionality.
Or Space X could build rockets that don't explode.
@@angiesmith5995 Seriously? Hazard of the trade. See Russian record...
@@angiesmith5995 SpaceX DOES build rockets with the highest reliability statistics in the world! Prototypes under development do explode, and SpaceX has always made abundantly clear that it might and will happen... NASA spaceships explode also... but with crew aboard, that's the difference!
So, a pretty hasty and ill-informed comment!
Unfortunate growing pains of private space efforts. Not to minimize potential risk but.... We/they will figure it out
How much money have they got left in the budget?
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Well since Musk has become $200B richer since the Starship program started, I think they've got a while.
Sure, and Musk still hasn't figured out how to make his Teslas safer for the owners and traveling public that encounters one of his Tesla autopilot experiments.
Definite concern --- What FAA actions were taken during the shuttle Columbia disaster? Since that was a scheduled re-entry was there already NOTAM in place for the flight path? What does FAA do if it is other space debris coming down or does NASA inform them of this and FAA puts out warning?
One problem with many test flights of rockets is that they can have a very uncertain launch time. Blue Origin had a 4-hour window for their test launch on several days before they finally launched. The downrange NOTAM cannot stop traffic for all that time, but they should have a notification in real time when the rocket launches.
Then taking off over all of that traffic is crazy
@@rogueninja1685 Yes, I understand that the Blue Origin test window was 1 AM to 5 AM EST to minimize air traffic in the area.
@ I guess I meant, what is wrong with Florida? Those boys from the 60's didn't pick Canaveral for the beach life
@@rogueninja1685 NASA and the Air Force (now Space Force) did not allow SpaceX to do their testing of Starship and SuperHeavy from the Canaveral launch sites because the SpaceX development and testing plan is too risky.
@ Still sounds like a solvable problem. Overflying the entire Caribbean is crazy
I was lead to believe that the entire flight path had a NOTAM. If so, wouldn't potential changes to the affected flights be planned?
Yep. I've seen reports that the corridor was in a notam that could be activated if required. They should have familiarised themselves with it and have a plan if it's activated.
I thought the same thing. That's why I like coming to Juan's channel. Just the facts and none of the BS.
No, the launch NOTAMS only affect a small area near the launch site. This 'disassembly' incident occurred hundeds of miles downrange. I suspect the FAA will have to fix that now.
For the entire flight path to have a NOTAM, you'd have a swath from Texas to the Indian Ocean, and for operational rockets all the way around the globe. Given the frequency of space launches, the low likelihood of failures at later stages of flight, how most of this path is under a vehicle operating outside of the atmosphere, and how even a few seconds more of a burn can shift the impact point hundreds of miles, this is not practical. Predicting where rocket debris will fall during flight is as complex as determining where space junk will land, with the larger area of the latter offset by the junk will hit the ground while the rocket usually will not outside the designated areas.
Typically NOTAMs are issued for the early phase of flight and where stages are expected to land after burnout. For Starship, the first stage returns to the launch site and so is covered by the first NOTAM shown here, while a second NOTAM should have been issued for the Indian Ocean splashdown zone.
Going forward, I expect the FAA will reevaluate this procedure for developmental vehicles like Starship, but for operational rockets the existing system has worked well for decades.
@@1947dave I believe there was a hazard NOTAM in that airspace. The small area is closed airspace.
What happened after the space shuttle disintegrated over texas? It's been so long I can't remember how they handled that.
For the massive number of launches Spacex has(138 in 2024 alone), they are by far the least incident prone. Yes flights were disrupted. I remember getting my flight disrupted (held in the air for nearly an hour, along with many others) just so a certain political leader could get a haircut. Spacex’s record is very good. Not perfect, but the best in space launch history.
If only they could ditch that lame ceo ...
That record is with every other Spacex rocket but Starship. Starship has a very bad record, exploding during every flight.
"Not perfect, but the best in space launch history."
Seven failures in a row.
@@iblardit incorrect. The boster has landed twice, it has also had two soft landings in the ocean. Star ship has had two soft landings in the ocean.
@@roza9813 we love Elon
Juan, your last question was of utmost importance to all of us!
Were there no notam's prior to the launch?
SpaceX has issued a statement after today’s 7th Starship test flight.
“Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship (upper stage), leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas.
Starship flew within its designated launch corridor - as all U.S. launches do to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water and in the air. Any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.
As always, success comes from what we learn, and this flight test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary. Data review is already underway as we seek out root cause. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests.
The ship and booster for Starship’s eighth flight test are built and going through prelaunch testing and preparing to fly as we continue a rapid iterative development process to build a fully and rapidly reusable space transportation system.”
Or, in other words: "We blew up another taxpayer funded toy, but fortunately it blew up where it was meant to. We think that it blew up because it was faulty. Hopefully we'll figure it out so it doesn't blow up and eighth time. The FAA is going to help us because nobody that worked on the hugely successful Saturn 5 programme over 50 years ago is available."
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Luckily the beauty of the USA is, the innovators, and the doer's accomplish great things. While the keyboard warriors and naysayers accomplish nothing, but have every right to their opinions... Opinion are like Assholes, everyone's got one... 🤣 New Glenn also had a catastrophic failure of their booster. Better read up on USA space development. Better to keep your ignorance quiet, rather than put it on display for all to see...
@ Does that mean I have to go over Saturn 5 all over again? All those successful missions, including their first two unmanned test flights?
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Come out of your moms basement, NASA is batting 000 average with their multiple recent failures. SpaceX to the rescue for the astronauts stuck in space...
How many millions people live in the predefined hazard areas which include most of the Caribbean islands ??
What are the risk mitigation measures taken in these hazard areas?? Are the local people informed ??
Which direction in the North Hemisphere can you get to space without crossing over airliners?
The FAA seems in search of something to do besides upgrade their systems to compensate for progress.
The FAA manages airspace and does it well. They require both aircraft manufacturers and rocket companies to properly investigate all accidents to help prevent further accidents. In this case there were no people on board so the concern is not the safety of the rocket itself but the disruption to air traffic in the area which is costly and holds some risk if people are not properly notified in time. In this case all they require is that SpaceX identify the cause of the accident and take some steps to rectify it. It is not nearly as serious as an aircraft accident where repeated incidents are far more likely to result in deaths.
For SpaceX this is not new or unexpected or even particularly disruptive as they would investigate and rectify the issues regardless of the FAAs intervention. The only concern for them is whether the turnaround on the acceptance of the documentation happens in a reasonable timeframe.
Does SpaceX have to reimburse airlines for costs associated with the diversions (e.g., extra fuel)?
I mean, there’s virtually no orbital trajectory on the planet that you can perform without overflying commercial aviation if (at any point suborbital) the vehicle fails and reenters the atmosphere.
Like, none.
So when you say “slow Elon down” - first of all, the company is SpaceX (and I think throwing his name in there constantly clearly shows your political frustrations) second, the vehicle has achieved nominal insertion on almost every flight.
This just happens to be the largest rocket in history - no one cares when a sounding rocket fails.
Unfortunately testing is required for everything, regardless of size / mass (or political siding.)
So, I’m not really sure what you’re trying to “slow down” here. Draw an ascent path / orbital trajectory across any point from the United States, and by the time it achieves near-orbital speeds, you’ve got a path halfway around the world.
That’s just basic orbital mechanics, and would apply to any rocket.
If by nominal insertion you mean "into the ocean", then yes it has achieved nominal insertion in most of it's flights and managed to hit the correct ocean. It has not done an orbit. A NOTAM for all points the craft could potentially come down would be trivial to issue, it's literally only for a few minutes.
Slowing down refers to SpaceX policy of putting out hurried protypes in quick succession and having someone else pay for the delays and disruptions.
They are taking unnecessary risks because they want to get to their target fast, but FAA does not have to allow that.
And while orbital rockets fly around the world, these Starship test launches are not orbital. Just forcing them to launch from Space Coast would already make it very unlikely that debris falls on inhabited areas, and would disturb a lot less planes.
@@JariJuslin none of the flights intended to be orbital by design. Considering how many things are being tested each flight it's unfair to say the flight was a failure when they do accomplish many goals during the test flight. Multiple starships are being produced at one time which allows for rapid iteration and testing. Nothing needs to slow down.
Two space shuttles blew up and they weren’t prototypes. Any rocket can fail on launch or reentry. New glen could have. It’s shocking that the FAA doesn’t have notams for the entire launch and reentry area since technically every rocket launch could pose a danger of debris to aircraft.
Yea sorry. Lost a lot of respect for Juan for his ending comments. Apparently against forward development or progress.
I think the people jumping to SpaceX's defense are technically correct, but missing the point. SpaceX is mostly fine here, but the FAA is not. The fact that all these aviation professionals were not aware of the launch and potential for issues in that area is a real problem.
It's a SpaceX rocket... It is SpaceX's responsibility. SpaceX, not the FAA endangered thousands of people. Blaming the FAA is like blaming the police because drunk egomaniac fired a gun into the air.
@@eikopoppy29 the Notam was posted for the launch but as Juan pointed out it just doesn’t cover the area that could be effected should something go wrong.
Amen
So Space X causes a hazard, but we're going to blame the government?
Seems odd they didn’t communicate or didn’t have an exclusion zone along the flight path since any rocket can explode on launch.
Full steam ahead!! Let the flaming hair folk settle with space x WHEN your apocalyptic predictions come true.
My god, the fact that we're still communicating high risk information so poorly and ineffective to pilots is terrifying.
Juan please also announce the facts "As of 15 January 2025, rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 439 times, with 436 full mission successes, three failures,[a] and one partial failure. "... this is just stunning and on a different level than NASA .. now or in the past.
SpaceX’s mission is also much narrower than NASA’s too, so let’s not kid ourselves that SpaceX has outdone NASA.
Wow, great debriefing Juan.
Let's not over-react and then over-regulate bleeding edge rocket technology testing. We need to innovate. We need to take risks. Small ones, but we need to accept them. We are lucky to have a reckless billionaire who want's to get humans into space. Let's not treat him like John Galt.
We don't "need" to go to space at all. Mankind has spent it's existence on earth. It's all luxury.
Reckless billionaires are the biggest danger to society we are not lucky at all. The starship system is a giant waste of resources. Accidents like this put the public at risk with zero public benefit, why tolerate it?
Who is "we" a shady globalist corporate money pot fronted by some public cut out?
That is normal for the FAA to allow the space companies to do the investigation and send there findings to the FAA. That is what happens in a mishap investigation.
If only there was part of the US Government to investigate problems with vehicles and transportation systems in order to make then safer...
@@markevans2294 it is already included in their procedures- ‘preventative actions’. The absolute last thing America needs is to create more government (which is wasteful and inept in every single thing it does).
Correct, what people don’t seem to understand is that the FAA isn’t absent rather they are closely involved in these ‘self investigations’
Thanks, as usual, for your straight forward, intelligent, informed, and only slightly snarky coverage! LOL. Love your work!
Watching Scott Manley's video there was a question. Did Starship explode, or was the Self destruction activated? Would it be better to control the whole ship, in one piece, to the sea instead of having these thousands of pieces
Couple reasons "dive it into the ocean in one piece" doesn't work in this scenario. First, the last telemetry frame we as the public saw had it at 146km in altitude (almost 480,000ft), and at a velocity of 21317 km/hr (~13,245 mi/hr), and second, it was losing engines (that same last frame was down to 1 engine out of 6), meaning it didn't have a way to divert to a controlled reentry. In uncontrolled flight, an FTS based termination is preferred because it's designed to break the vehicle up into smaller pieces (and, violently, expend/disperse all remaining fuel and oxidizer, so it's not also a massive bomb coming back down). Especially at those altitudes and speeds, that gives a higher chance that the vast majority of the vehicle burns up during reentry, eliminating the majority of the risk associated with it.
They have confirmed it was not FTS.
@@subwarpspeed Source please.
Juan, the NOTAM is only issued for the Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) that area is near the launch site. The DRA will not be shown in any NOTAMs because they will not know if and when/where the vehicle may have a mishap. AIRCRAFT HAZARD AREA (AHA)- Used by ATC to segregate air traffic from a launch vehicle, reentry vehicle, amateur rocket, jettisoned stages, hardware, or falling debris generated by failures associated with any of these activities. An AHA is designated via NOTAM as either a TFR or stationary ALTRV. Unless otherwise specified, the vertical limits of an AHA are from the surface to unlimited.
I have seen images online of what look like the pre-defined DRA areas, and the area where the debris fell was named DRA4. It looked specific to the Starship flight plan, rather than a general purpose definition. Do you know how wide the distribution of that information is? Seems like flights going through that area during this time should have been briefed on that... or at least that controllers should have been aware of this corridor and event and been ready for it
And there in lies the problem
@@blancolirio the FAA's, not SpaceX's who had followed the procedures defined in the launch license.
@greyhame Correct, I also saw those. I'm not familiar in the development of how these AREAs are determined, but my understanding is that they use some kind of NASA software that does the calculation based on the launch trajectory. The Controllers who's airspace has the DRA activated will see it in their scope. The issue is none of the pilots entering these possible DRAs know this beforehand.
What height was this breakup - and is any likely to reach airliner altitude?
Blue Origin had a mishap as well. Is New Glenn grounded?
It sure is.
Yes I believe so. The FAA considers any failure a reason to ground until an investigation is conducted EVEN if that mishap was landing or catching a booster. The FAA doesn’t care if it exploded going up or coming down. Which to me is kind of dumb that if your booster blows up above your barge in the middle of the ocean, that means you can’t launch another one. I mean the booster went up just fine lol
Yep, but with a lot less anger from Juan 😅
I’m surprised a no fly zone path wasn’t organised for at least the first few test flights. In Perth Western Australia a few outbound flights were being re routed around the landing area off WA.
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Starship 2nd stage blew up in nearly the same location at nearly the same altitude (400,000 some thousand feet) during test flight 2 back in 2023 . Where was all the gnashing of teeth back then? At this point, FAA issues the launch license and is aware of the time of launch and the path the spacecraft will travel. They are also aware that if there is an anomaly with the vehicle the flight termination system will activate and destroy the craft which will cause debris. SpaceX did everything required to meet FAA criteria for a launch
Not true, check your facts!
@@gordonrichardson2972 Oh, it is absolutely true. A 5 minute search would provide you with multiple sources. Here, want the video? RUclips search the title: " SpaceX Starship Explosion Filmed from the Florida Keys! " posted by the Astronomy_Live channel.
That debris was probably more than 50 miles in altitude. The altitude of the RUD was 88 miles.
Do any pieces reach the ground? Or everything burns up?
It is super hard to judge distances when at altitude. But those operating at FL4000 and above would have to be very careful (extra zero not a typo). I'm not sure exactly when the debris would have gotten down to the class A area. I presume SpaceX could have figured that out pretty promptly. But getting such out of band information to controllers quickly is stupendous hard.
I’ve never understood calling it a RUD. We don’t say that the Titanic took a rapid unscheduled dive or that a car took a rapid unscheduled course change. Call a spade a spade: the rocket failed and exploded.
Thermal tiles will make it to the ground without much issue.
@@michaelimbesi2314it's called humor, Michael.
How far can air traffic control broadcast? Only to the planes on a certain frequency? How are multiple areas coordinated when info needs to be disseminated? By this phone?
I think it was Scott Manly that mentioned this might have been a deliberate action by the flight termination software of Starship due to loss of engine control. There may have been an O2 or Methane leak that caused the engines to shut down.
NASA didn't have to put up with this as much in the 1950s as there were far fewer flights. But they had their fair share of "learning experiences".
"learning experiences" sometimes referred to as "a character building exercises"
and many deadly experience.
at the point of loss of engine control (engines shutting down on telemetry) spacex didnt have any communication with starship, last thing you want is for it to change its trajectory with that last engine still running, pointing it in a direction that could possibly make it crash land in an area that has people living in it, so blowing it up automatically (FAA flight termination) is the best thing for it, debris was 100 km up, and from what I've heard from people that done the math, majority of the debris would have landed in the atlantic.
It wasn’t due to loss of engine control. Somebody cross referenced the timestamps of the video of it exploding with the actual telemetry, and it continued flying for several minutes after they lost contact, and the engines were already gone.
@@michaelimbesi2314 Just off the cuff reasoning from someone that played too much KSP, they might have the FTS's conditions set in a way that, if it's already "in space" at over 100km, it waits until it's at a negative vertical speed, and possibly considerably closer to that 100km line, before detonating. That would minimize the risk of "loft" of debris up into the regions covered by low earth orbit (the ISS is at about 400km). They were at 146km and still had a positive vertical speed at the last telemetry frame I saw. The few minutes between that and the explosion might've been just enough to get over the peak. At those altitudes, it's also much less likely to break up from any failure *except* an explosion until it's fallen back into the atmosphere a fair bit. Fairing separations tend to happen in the 60-80km regime, and payloads are *far* more fragile than starship.
Holy Flying Cyber Trucks
😂 Exploding Cyber Trucks. 💥
HAHAHAHA 😆 😂 😆 😂 Well done
Not "blaming" SpaceX for the FAA's failure of clearing a path for planned rocket flights is the right thing.
Nah I don't think you can blame FAA. Before rocket launches are commonplace, FAA DID close down airspace for a large swath of the rocket's path. But as launch frequency increased, it's not feasible to close down that much airspace. That would actually be an obstacle to rocket development.
The current system of NOTAM for near the launch site, and debris response area further away in case of mishaps, works. Everything we see from this incidence is things working as intended. The only criticism is it seems airlines were not aware of these debris response zones, or did not plan for them. That's why a number of fuel emergencies were declared.
Slow him down? Seriously? He didn’t plan on the rocket exploding.
Au contraire. Musk takes any failure as a learning opportunity. They knew within an hour what happened, and they already have a fix in development.
You never know the level of professionalism you are going to get from San Juan Center. Sometimes they are great, sometimes, not so much.
@@stay_at_home_astronaut I watch a lot of his stuff, this one caught me off guard. Let's hope the latter "sometimes" remains more of an uncharacteristic deviation from form.
We, the viewers, for the type of channel this is, should not be able to tell that Juan, seemingly, is viscerally not a fan of Elon. In fact, this is exactly in the weird zone: if it is unavoidable that a presenter's political and personal views modulate a given piece of content's presentation, it would have been less jarring if the video began by him adding out loud, after the t-minus, "and so this is all pretty off the cuff because Elon really rubs me the wrong way, and today his world collided with mine, and so I'm covering this one hot".
The problem is that I think Juan himself doesn't yet understand this (that the above quote would be true about himself and his response here) or at least didn't at time of recording.
That's a symptom of being staffed by humans.
@@JoshWalker1 No one is obligated to give qualifiers before or after expressing their opinions.
@@JoshWalker1This is the dumbest comment I have ever seen, Space Shuttle Colombia and Challenger disasters could have impacted planes,flying at the time, both under republican presidents and administrations , and politics is the issue of someone reporting facts.
@@stay_at_home_astronaut Certainly. It might be a good idea for clarity or other reasons, but (obviously) there's no obligation outright
Is it known what altitude the Starship was at when it broke apart? I heard it mentioned that a lot of these pieces burned up prior to the lower traffic altitudes. Obviously the Challenger in 2003 had many pieces make it all the way to earth but wasnt sure of this case.
Thanks a lot. Amazing as always.
too gleeful over mishap. SpaceX doing great work to build the next generation of orbital and space flight vehicle.
Maybe Elon could focus on building cars that don't plough into stationary objects first.
@ and when does that happen? FSD much safer than human drivers
@@Steve-Richter
Read much? In the last year alone, I've read a number of print articles and watched a number of videos regarding tesla accidents.
@@BuzzyStreet Any links? A video of a Tesla driving into anything would be front page news. Look at the glee of this RUclips channel getting out news of a rocket explosion. To the contrary, people do not post vids of their Tesla doing the driving since it has become so routine.
@Steve-Richter
Here are just two.
Florida - the vehicle missed an intersection and drove into a field, an orange grove, IIRC. One fatality, and one severely injured.
Sunnyvale, CA - vehicle rear ended a stopped vehicle. Fatality.
Juan, thanks for this insightful review of this situation. Are there not alerts when something launches from Cape Canaveral, such as New Glenn-1 earlier in the day?
Seems more like a notam issue. Anything can happen during a space flight mission especially a prototype vehicle no airliners should be in the flight path or underneath it or above it at any point until it is in orbit
I disagree 100% with your premise. The problem is that the FAA does not extend the no play zone far enough. We are going to lunch rockets and they’re gonna come from Boca Chica and elsewhere. It’s just reality and moving fast is important. It’s the FAA that needs to adjust not companieslike SpaceX or blue origin or rocket lab or whatever
FAA does not appear to issue NOTAMs in international airspace, only domestic. Correct me if I'm wrong. Seems that perhaps we do need more cooperation between the relevant agencies of affected countries when rockets are launched.
Also, appears to me that there was never an immediate danger to any of the aircraft. The debris was identified and communicated across the relevant ATC and thus down to the aircraft. Almost everyone took the necessary actions.
Juan: check out recent “Ellie in Space” episode. She interviews a 787 pilot who has a VERY different take on the hazard.
She's a paid influencer to swing the narrative in favour of the corporate hand. Very sick when you consider the risk to aviation.
When NASA launched the Shuttles. The flight path was designated a "no fly zone" just for this scenario.
Actually the NOTAM's were mainly because the shuttle had the ability to abort to multiple sights around the World. So, the NOTAM was issued because the shuttle may fly through the airspace to land at an abort airfield.
I imagine that if FlightAware existed during Shuttle days , a busy day in the flight path area would be pretty sparse compared with today...
Great audio production. Love the channel 👌
Terrible reporting. Not Space X is grounded, but Starship. Also this kind of interruption is normal for any rocket incidents.
🚧 Warning...Comments section 'expert' 🚧 🙄
I watched Victor's video, and a lot of viewers were wondering who will foot the bill for all the diverted flights and related expenses.
For Musk those expenses just a change money.
Yea!! Airlines should "foot the bill" for passengers' expenses EVERY TIME they're late for ALL arrivals, departures, and/or diversions!! 🙄
Elon is responsible. 100%
The passengers. Musk is to cheap to pay employees fair wages. He wont pay this.
As in all preplanned launches the plans and associated costs were already done. That occurred during the flight planning phase of every legal flight on that day. That is the purpose of flight planning. That is why it is incredibly difficult to do anything last minute that requires a NOTAM.
How would the air traffic around Vandenburg Space Force Base be affected by a similar incident?
If Boeing can investigate itself, I do not see why SpaceX shouldn't be allowed to investigate itself ...
Its genuinely normal, the best the FAA can do is evaluate the analysis and solutions provided. They should get sound engineered explanations and if thats possible then its very positive, SpaceX has to explain themselves in clear language.
Totally different business models.
Boeing mass produce planes, SpaceX build utility vehicles for themselves.
Seeing as how Boeing has massively failed in both the Comercial aviation side, and Starliner you are really willing to let a slimeball company like SpaceX and Musk do it too? Boeing is not the only corruption out there.
@@johns5558 The FAA can also bring in outside help for analysis, as has happened in the past. People who can "fix" what was lacking in the SpaceX attempt.
@@dougaltolan3017 I think all those killed in the 737 max disasters would argue.
Oh don’t be that guy Juan. Space X isn’t grounded. Starship is grounded.
Potato potatoe
@@kylenobes1 Boeing wasn't grounded. 737 maxes were grounded. Not potatoes. Did JB make the headline "Boeing Grounded" for the door falling off?
@@kylenobes1 You say potatoe, I say potato, let's call the whole thing off.
@@kylenobes1 it's not potatoes when you are launching a rocket at a rate of nearly 1 every other day
He did change the title after the backlash 😂
5:15 with that being a bunch of sequential days, I'd guess backup launch windows for the same thing probably?
It's going to be interesting to learn if the vehicle broke up due to natural causes, or was it the flight termination / self destruct system that did it.
If it was the latter, you’ve got to question whether it should be allowed to activate so close to land / active airspace.
It could have been better to get it out further over the mid atlantic before triggering the self destruct so less chance of damage.
As discussed elsewhere it was an automated flight termination event.
I understand it was the FTS that activated and destroyed the ship. As for how high is the best, there's probably a sweet spot. Too high and the debris can be scattered over a large area. Too low and too many pieces hit the ground. Just like the bear's porridge, you have to get it just right.
Due to the engine imbalance I would imagine that it went into a crazy head over heals tumble and then hit the atmosphere at Mach 20.
as the telemetry had already ceased it seems unlikely the ship was still able to accept commands from the ground
Once the engines are out the rocket is a ballistic object subject to gravity and the effect of aerodynamic drag within the atmosphere. The rocket is at that point simply following a ballistic path. If the rocket didn't break up it might well have travelled to Africa before it crashed into the ground. That is, the path the rocket took was not within SpaceX hands to control or alter other than blowing it up!
Can you do a video on the moss landing power plant fire? Not aviation related but surely there’s some educational value.
Were they really trying to avoid the debris or just wanted to have a good look from every window?
Boeing to Elon: "LOL - I'll bet SpaceX is gonna be grounded for a year for this..."
Elon to Boeing: "I'll see your bet and raise you 500mil".
Boeing: Folds.
😂😂 you’re so funny I forgot to laugh
@@Morpheus187 ⏰ No problem. I set your alarm to remind you tomorrow morning at 7AM.
2016 I'll land two rockets on Mars in two years, believe me. -Elon
I spent 100k on a roadster deposit in 2018, what a scammer 😂
Ah, here is the Musk envy post. Mental illness is treatable, you should get some help.
There are 3 videos of passengers and pilot who captured the debris field
It's crazy to me how many aircraft are flying at any given time--even in a non-continental area like the southeast Caribbean. 😮
So how much that cost in fuel to all those airplanes companies….
About as much as having to divert around a storm
@pierremcculloch9971 If it was even $100k for ALL flights affected I would be very surprised. Practically nothing in the scope of things.
I assume the falling pieces can be as large as a House/Bus and as small as a marble? That's a lot of stuff. I wonder if there is much effort to pick up the floating pieces?
05:50 Very well said !
This does have the usual feel that aviation is special and precious and beyond any kind of logical examination. A few flights were inconvenienced. So what? Most of the inconvenience is a result of poor procedures in the aviation industry.
Rockets fly over water. If there's a chance of them crashing into a populated area, they blow themselves up.
Unlike aviation that routinely flies over dense populations. The residents of Lockerbie weren't asked to hold or go elsewhere. The people in the apartment block weren't asked to move out for the day while Concord fell out of the sky.
If you invented aviation today aircraft wouldn't be allowed to overfly land. And rightly so. People on the ground are required to risk their lives so that rich people don't have to take the train. We only think that's acceptable because we're used to it. It's not, it never was, it never will be.
It burns when someone in aviation says with a straight face that something must be done because some flights were diverted. Particularly when that someone has reported so many deaths on the ground that are the result of pilots choosing the safest place for themselves over the safest place for the people on the ground.
Out of how many launches has this problem occurred and who decided the area of caution?
What Elon is doing is undeniably more important to society than a handful of diverted flights full of holidayers.
The flight window is very small, it exploded only 9-10 minutes into flight and was going to shut off its engines at that point anyway.
The FAA is responsible for coming up with proper NOTAMs that explain the issue more clearly. Managing a 10 minute disruption as a double redundant safeguard is hardly some earth-shattering feat, and you admitted the only issue here is the NOTAM.
Don't say to slow Elon down when he's the only reason we have a space industry in 2025.
I'd argue that sorting out problems here on earth might be way more important than Elon or anyone else at present.
Musk is doing f-all at spacex aside from putting his name on it. The money comes from the government, r&d is performed by scientists who actually know what they're doing, and the basis of their self-landing tech comes from the McDonnell MD-X.
What Musk is doing is inflating his ego on Twitter and meddling in elections around the world to help right-wing extremists. Not sure how that is in any way important to society.
@@stringpicker5468 No. We need to get away from Communist control BS. Tell idiots they are idiots and move on. That doesn't take any time. Humanity must stop with this Communist crap. It's a Communist control tactic to get the people worrying about paying for bread, so they don't have time to worry about anything else.
Climate change is a more pressing issue, and Elon isn't doing anything to solve it.
@@Ometecuhtli Didn't reply to the last guy who didn't read my comment, but now I'm kind of annoyed.
I very clearly, in my first line no less, said my comparison was Elon's space flights vs diverted holiday flights.
How you all got to "why isn't elon fixing all of earth's problems first" is bizarre.
Not your most balanced report. At 5:22 you show 7 days of possible closures and imply that each of those was a launch "Every time they launch one of these rockets". All but one of those were canceled and launches from Texas are rare right now. If you want to talk about economics, maybe Jet Blue should load more fuel if they don't want to divert. The launch was not a secret and the launch window was only 98 minutes. Does not take a supercomputer to look at what flights will be crossing the flight path.
Who and how is the down range hazard area established? Would islands fall into this hazard area?
That crews weren't aware is a failing of the FAA. This shouldn't be more difficult than avoiding a thunderstorm. And airlines need to be able to share the airspace too.
How many crews *actually* read *all* the NOTAMs anyway?
Catastrophic spacecraft failures = weather? Nope.
Pull up your spacecraft radar in your airliner I'll wait.
@@Raiders1917 Not necessary. FAA is already adept at dynamically rerouting traffic around large tracts of storms. They just don't get surprised by it like they did here, where they knew in advance. Granted maybe here the width of the swath was wider than expected, but they can learn to adjust for that.
Juan, my understanding is that the FAA has not grounded SpaceX. However SpaceX's starship rocket has been grounded. Please be more precise in your headlines.
You also implied that the only NOTAM issued was for the exclusion zone around the launch site. There would have definitely been more that one NOTAM. (The landing zone would also have an exclusion zone). My understanding is that there were also NOTAMs issued for warning zones under the flightpath, extending beyond the Turks and Caicos Islands. (You even showed the red zone in your screenshot of Scott Manley's video).
For the NOTAM you did show, you said "it looks as if this is a regularly scheduled NOTAM for every time they launch one of these SpaceX rockets out of Boca Chica". Actually all those times are their launch windows for this one test flight. (Starship test launches are still fairly rare, and delays due to weather or other factors are common, so it is normal practise to schedule multiple launch windows).
You are definitely showing a lack of detailed research and accuracy in this video.
Agree
So the rocket they launch is grounded, which means no more rocket launches yet that is somehow misleading?
Without citations how is one to know your research is any better?
@@robertscott2269It's misleading because SpaceX has more than one type of rocket. They also have Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and they have proven track records. Therefore, it's completely inaccurate to say all SpaceX flights are grounded, when only the Starship flights are grounded. I expect better from Juan than this
It's akin to saying all Boeing products are grounded if some brand new test aircraft crashed.
@@robertscott2269 I have seen no reports to suggest that SpaceX's Falcon 9 has been grounded. (And Falcon 9 launches are much more common than Starship launches).
"Move fast and break things" is fine until you start breaking other people's things...
This is the reason to improve air traffic control technology. NOTAM’s should follow the vehicle going East until the altitude is high enough for the debris to burn up while interning the atmosphere. SpaceX StarShip is following the same cadence as they did for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Their philosophy of design it, build it, push it, break it, learn from it, re-design it, rinse and repeat is the fastest way to a man rated vehicle. So far SpaceX has had a good record with safety. Was this flight a “Near Miss”? I would say yes if the airspace down range wasn’t clear. Is it possible to divert all flights from a potential debris field? It would if we improved air traffic control. With a centralized DCS, StarLink, and ground monitoring stations, it would be possible. Still, to make the improvements will take time.