Gale Hawkins
Super Member
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 8,268
- Location
- Murray, KY
- Tractor
- 1948 Allis Chambers Model B 1976 265 MF / 1983 JD 310B Backhoe / 1966 Ford 3000 Diesel / 1980 3600 Diesel
The goal was to reach altitude with new booster rockets. That was a success.
The landing however, resulted in a catastrophic explosion.
If the flight vehicle is destroyed in a flight test, well, IMHO, it is not a successful flight test.
Look at the flight video. How many colors of exhaust did you see? Read what Elon Musk said about why they could not make the required thrust for a softer landing. It was a very successful test in that Elon Musk got the data that they was looking for. He had stated there was about 33.3% chance of no failure. It took off and made the stimulated reentry and made it back to the landing point and more or less cleared the remains of a one off prototype very quickly.