Was that a range safety charge that cooked off?
Landing burn was fine.

Apollo 12’s Saturn 5 took lightning strikes going uphill too. That doesn’t make it something one should wish to do if avoidable.

The US is fortunate that its busiest spaceport is below 30 degrees north latitude and none of the others are above 37 degrees north latitude. The Russkies pretty much have to be able to launch in crummier weather because they get a lot more of it given that all of their spaceports are located above 45 degrees north latitude. Vostochny is in Siberia above 51 degrees north latitude. Plesetsk is above 62 degrees north latitude – within spitting distance of the Arctic Circle.

The way things are currently going in Russia, though, launch weather is looking to be pretty well in freefall down the list of priority concerns. And once Russia dies, of course, it won’t be launching any more rockets anyway regardless of weather.

ok. So the part that failed this time was the hose/pipe through which LOX flows into Starship. Doesn’t it make sense to test that part in isolation? Pump LOX into a Starship size tank every day until it fails? What do I know.

The thing that is really worrying is that Starship eventually gets into LEO. At which time Starship is refueled by multiple tanker ships and the engines are ignited again so that the ship can travel to Mars. That exposes a whole new set of not yet tested parts. But an explosive failure while in orbit will be unprecedented and how destructive? Starship might not be permitted to ever fly again.

;)

At 10 this morning, things looked great!

R-7 took lightning strikes—sat and burned….but a diaphanous anvil cloud scares Boca.

Fortunately, this leak was on the ground equipment, not the flight hardware. However, a leak on test 9’s flight hardware was responsible for its loss of control, the subsequent cancellation of the engine relight test, the test of the “Pez” satellite dispenser, and the failed reentry.

One of Musk’s philosophies is: the best part is no part. This is why each Raptor engine iteration has fewer parts. A corollary to that philosophy is: if you don’t have to add parts back on, then you didn’t remove enough parts. It is his way of finding the optimum parts needed for success. Flight 6 was fairly successful, so the losses of the past three flights are due to the version 2 (block 2) redesign, so clearly they have taken off too many parts and made the rocket not as successful. Putting parts back on is their way of finding the optimum. It may be taking extra time, but it is making a better Starship for future use.

These failures are worrying in that once Starship is in LEO there is very little room for error involving leaking fuel pipes or any other sort of problem.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/south-padre-island/78597/hourly-weather-forecast/341034

“Billy-Bob? You did remove all the tie-downs, right?”

“Yeah yeah…sure-sure…..zzzzzz”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiYXBbqKjPU