leviathan;n3545616 said:No, Elon confirmed in the press conference that landing burn ignition partially failed (single engine ignition worked, but transition to three-engine burn failed) and the stage splashed down at 300mph ~100m next to the drone ship, damaging two drone ship thrusters and spraying it with shrapnel.
This is their first failed landing in a while now. Might have something to do with extensive modifications carried out on the core (he mentioned they had to "almost completely redesign" the center core for the Heavy). At least it survived a high-speed re-entry despite only having aluminum grid fins and targeted the drone ship correctly. Not actually hitting the ship is part of the fail-safe flight profile - the landing stage always approaches off-target, and only shifts course onto the landing pad/ship once the landing burn fully ignites, to prevent a full-speed crash from damaging the landing target.
Apparently the centre core ran out of the liquid which ignites the engines. Solution = add more liquid.
Like others, I had a massive goose bumps moment when I sat on my own watching the test flight for the first time. Particularly the dual 1st stage landings.
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