before we are able to hold up to
15 minutes and still be able to
lift off today on falcon nine,
listening and learning it all
with you at the very same time
as they were on hold. I think
they said that final
pressurization was a little low
is what I think I heard him say.
Um and then the second stage
they're working on doing some
purging for more on what that is
going to mean. I'm gonna bring
miles o'brien back in miles.
They just said that they can
hold for 15 minutes and still be
within the window and lift off
will jump in as they give us
updates. But what do you hear in
this? Well in this business, you
have to be able to operate under
pressure. Shall we say a and
that's quite literal. It's um
you know, if you recall it's
scrubbed a few days ago for lack
of backfill kind of pressure.
Imagine like when you're
drinking water out of plastic
water bottle and you kind of
critique wrinkles if you don't
get airbag in it. Well you don't
want to rocket to crinkle. And
so what they do is they take the
gaseous methane and oxygen and
kind of pump it back in the
tanks, so it doesn't crinkle. So
in this case, they had to fully
pressure on eyes all these fuel
lines for 33 rockets, and it
took a little longer than they
expected. And so they went into
a hold. For now they've got in
total of 62 minute window. So
we've got some more time here.
Ah to play around as you can see
as that. You see that what
appears to be steamed, venting
off the rocket that is liquid
methane. But oxygen is kind of
bleeding off, so they gotta keep
it topped off at a certain
point. They have to stop.
Hopefully they can get the
pressure where it needs to be.
Well, thank you. Miles looks
like the countdown just just
started again. Just started back
up miles so now at 26 seconds
people are cheering. You can
hear them there. Let's listen in
you guys.
Eight. Yes. MM hmm.
Stop. Chamber pressure is
nominal. 33 seconds into the
point. The inaugural vehicles.
You're gonna picks over reports
first stage engines nominal.
What a sight from the ground
cameras extraordinary flying it
twice the thrust of the five.
We're down in front of back up.
The period of maximum
aerodynamic question. Velocity
increases. The depth of the
atmosphere is decreasing. That's
cute stress on the vehicle call
out next few now. Continuing to
watch the first stages. We head
down range. 100 seconds into
flight. The next major activity
is going to be the first stage.
Houston tracking station now
acquiring the vehicle. Shut down
super heavy. Mission of the
starship engines. What starts up
separates light up six engines
in the staggered sequence all
goes well. Those six engines
will burn from 6.5 minutes
onboard view from starship. Of
the rafter engines on the second
page. Prepare for stage
separation. After stage
separation, the first stage will
flip and begin to boost back
maneuver for landing in the
gulf.
Continuing to fly two minutes 40
seconds. Let's get ready for
main engine cut off. Stretch and
cut off beginning to flip for
stage separation
.
As of right now, we are awaiting
stage separation. First starship
should separate from the super
heavy booster. Yeah, Kate right
now, it looks like we saw the
start of the flip, but obviously
we're seeing from the ground
cameras. The entire starship
stack continue to rotate. We
should have had separation by
now. Obviously this is does not
appear to be a nominal
situation. Yeah, it does appear
to be spinning, but I do want to
remind everyone that everything
after clearing the tower was
icing on the cake.
Obviously something just went a
little bit wrong. Despite the
cheering you're seeing right now
, let's bring in miles o'brien.
We did see the launch of the
starship rocket all was going
well, that it ended with an
explosion there. Miles. Explain
what happened. Uh well, you, um
there will be a lot of
discussion about this. This the
one thing I did notice, John. As
it went up, there was a shot
where you could see the bottom
of the rocket. As I told you
earlier, there are 33 separate
rapture engines on this vehicle
. Six of them had not lit. To what
we just saw. I don't know. I
mean, without six engines that
would potentially affect the
ability of the rocket to remain
stable. And that could, uh,
ultimately have led to what
we've seen here now is that an
actual explosion of the rocket
or was a button pushed on the
ground? The self destruct button
, which is designed to keep the
rocket from flying into harm's
way, we'll find out more about
that as well. Ah having said all
of that, given all of the
explosions that have led to this
moment since 2005. This is
serial number 24 for the
starship and there's been
several mishaps along the way,
all of which they've learned
from you see the team at
Hawthorne, the young team,
they're cheering. Ah you know,
they would probably try to
characterize this as a pretty
good success. They got past they
light lit up most of the
engines. They got past the
launchpad didn't damage it and
all of the data that they've
gathered up to the point where
things went awry will likely
inform the next test flight,
which is gives us another
opportunity to meet once again.
It was, of course we look
forward to, I think, even right
before Monday's attempt, Elon
Musk said. As long as they don't
blow up the launch pad that is a
success in this in this critical
test miles. Stick with us. I
want to get over to Ed
lavandera, who's on the ground.
Of the things that was
unmistakable was the was the
sound from people around you
over the sound from somewhere
the roar of the crowd that we
heard upon lawn. Just tell us
what happened. Look I got to
tell you. You're looking at a
kid from the eighties who never
got to see a space shuttle
launch inversion. So this is the
first time I've ever experienced
anything like this. Um and it
was surreal. Uh we saw the
rocket take off and it was well
past the top of the launch pad,
and then all of the sudden we
started feeling you could feel
the rumbling. You could feel it
in your in your in your chest
and you were kind of shaking.
That's how powerful it was. And
it was. It was really, really
breathtaking. So that was in the
crazy thing is like I think I
knew that was going to happen,
and it was still stunning to
experience and it was almost
moving, like in slow motion from
our vantage point. I know it's
not moving in slow motion, but
from our vantage point, it
seemed very slow. And at one
point I was wondering like, is
it really going to get up there?
And so now, that's kind of the
experience and the cheering
here. We talked to one gentleman
a couple of days ago who had
driven in from Georgia to be
here for this week. You can
almost tell you like tears in
his eyes is as this was
happening, and then we saw it
kind of go off to the east,
leaving this large cloud trail.
And even from there, you could
still hear and feel the rumbling
sound. And then it was that what
the spacex officials describe as
the unplanned this assembly,
which is just a technical way of
saying that it all went terribly
wrong. You can hear the rumbling
from that from our vantage point
. And just so you know, we are
five miles from the launch pad,
and we are many more miles from
where this rocket ship
disassembled over the gulf of
Mexico. But clearly everybody
here on the ground. Leaves here
feeling like they just witnessed
one of the most historic events
, space travel events in their
lifetime. Many people we've
talked to here, guys, you know,
they equate this to you know
where they were when astronauts
landed on the moon orbited the
moon for the for the first time
they view all of this kind of in