Blastoff! SpaceX Starlink launch suffers upper stage anomaly - See the 'icy' engine burn

"SpaceX has made contact with five of the satellites so far and is attempting to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters," according to the private spaceflight company.

Credit: SpaceX

[mahmutucak]

It's a rare occurance when we see a falcon 9 failure. I'm glad it wasn't a booster landing error. Always nice to see those landings flawlessly.

[ethanmay]

Here’s to hoping the SpaceX team can quickly identify what exactly went wrong and mitigate the issue for future flights. Hopefully it’s a one off as Falcon 9 failures are exceptionally rare these days.

[Muonium]

Totally abnormal behavior and anomaly on the second stage at 4:00. An oxygen line breaks or cracks rapidly flooding the inner volume of the mylar thermal protection bag with oxygen ice. Engine exploded on relight an hour after SECO-1 and Starlinks are in a fatal 295 by 138 km orbit. Periapsis was supposed to be 150km higher than that after a 1 second stage 2 burn. Starlinks being reprogrammed to fire their argon Hall effect thrusters at max force to save themselves, but there's just no way. They're going to reenter and burn up within the next few
Further calculation: each starlink was supposed to get a 40kilonewton-second impulse from the 1second 2nd stage circularization burn, this will require 3 DAYS to make up for with the 170 millinewton force argon Hall effect thrusters. Not possible.

[c.a.nixiii]

Was that a helium leak? Asking for a friend who works for Boeing. What?

[Subiwubi]

They were celebrating free slurpee day since it was 7/11.
Who wants a Merlin Slurpee?!

[awesomefeldmanfamily]

Also what the heck is that string thing by the first stage camera when it's in space?

[vosa]

Perfect Machine. Perfect work in the world Perfect team in the world Perfect Mission. Thank you very much 120724.

[AdvanceServicellc]

With 300+ flights I believe under their belt this is a minor setback.. What they're doing is extremely technical and things like this are bound to happen..

[penguinca]

Not too bad. Slight lower than planned but the Sat's can maneuver to their intended orbit still.

[Pintuuuxo]

Maybe SpaceX were testing some new feature. In the video it looks like an O2 leak. The 2nd stage seems to have achieved the target speed. Or, maybe SpaceX think that the Falcon 9 launches were becoming too boring and provided those spaceflocks to keep us all watching the show. 😊

[clmcoclmco]

what is that black thing flapping around on stage 1 returning to earth.? Its been there from separation to landing.

[blackfox]

It's very normal to have some few minor failures

[sunil_de]

What is that second engine that they keep cutting to?

[gumeni]

can you see that he is walking around the engine like a mouse or a rat at 4:07 or am I the crazy speed of 10, 000 km/h?

[dougadams]

Somebody forgot the insulation someplace?

[Chris-unns]

So cool how the booster comes back the opposite direction,
If only Leonardo could see this and a landing up close, he would probably have a heart attack.

[mclark]

Very cool. Falcon 9 is taking after its "Starship" cousin!

[davidsheriff]

Orbital speed achieved, over icing ocurred....

[sylvesterdakatt]

It’s looks so real that it has to be fake

[Typical-]

Another rapid unscheduled dissasembly ?😁