SpaceX is having a bad day.

[Update Sunday morning]

Starship SN9 is no longer leaning, with Tankzilla the hero.
Falcon 9 is targeting a new T-0.

➡️https://t.co/6xrYQVyAHx pic.twitter.com/TSrVmNakbB

— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) December 13, 2020

[Bumped]

…coming this week.

Regardless of the outcome, it will be exciting.

[Wednesday-afternoon update]

It could be as soon as Friday.

[Bumped]

[Tuesday-morning update]

Today seems to be the day. It’s being covered by NASA Spaceflight.

With Starship SN8 set to launch on a test flight Tuesday, a final day of activities took place amid continued preparations for future Starships at the Production Site.

Video and Pictures from Mary (@BocaChicaGal). Edited by Theo Ripper (@TheoRipper).

➡️https://t.co/97bNihSoKP pic.twitter.com/3cbMUjHQ4K

— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) December 8, 2020

[Bumped again]

[1440 PST update]

Raptor abort. They aren’t going partway to space today.

[Wednesday-afternoon update]

Fuel is loading, T-26 minutes to launch.

[Bumped]

[Post-flight update]

Well, that was kind of spectacular. As I said, guaranteed to be exciting. The exhaust looked a little weird toward the end. It was greenish, as though it was maybe running fuel rich. If so, Perhaps the thrust wasn’t up to spec, and insufficient to control the landing on final.

[Update a while later]

Elon said that the header tank pressure was low on landing. I’m guessing that this maybe resulted in bubbles in the cooling channels, overheating of the nozzle, and injecting copper into the flow, for that green effect. And reduced thrust, of course, which is why they came in too fast.

[Update Thursday afternoon]

Am I the only person who thinks it would be pretty unpleasant to be in the nose of that thing at final (even with a successful landing)?

A story from Wayne Hale about the organizational dangers.

I’m more optimistic than he is that we are going to normalize space transportation, though.