It went kablooie in the static test today. Video anon.
[Update a few minutes later]
It appears to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Not sure why there’s no audio, but I assume it was loud. Presumably no one was hurt; Mary was reportedly quite a ways away when she took this. Starhopper looks OK, but we’ll hear more soon. I was watching the live stream; it seems to be still burning. One of the benefits of stainless is that it’s cheap, compared to carbon composite.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s before and after.
[Update a while later]
Loren Grush has the story.
[Update a few minutes later]
And here’s Eric Berger’s story.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Worth noting, as Eric does, that the static test was successful, FWIW. So this is the biggest advance they’ve made yet on the SN series. Next challenge is to do a static test without an explosion afterward.
[Saturday-morning update]
Here’s one with audio. Note the delay due to the distance. Has to be over half a mile away.
[Update a few minutes later]
An article about the safety of the system, with a quote from Leroy Chiao: “Chiao said pushing too hard for safer numbers could cause a spaceflight program to spiral into never launching at all.”
You don’t say.