Starship launch failure

Update Starship launch 4, 4.21.23

Further examination of the videos shows that the rocket started malfunction just before stage separation. This may be a clue as to what went wrong.

One theory has it that the rocket hull was damaged. Let's say that could cause the mechanism for separation to fail. How would the rocket hull on the booster be damaged? Perhaps a weak point in the hull buckled under stresses from the failed engines? In the case of failed engines, those engines that can gimbal ( move around), would adjust to the unbalanced thrust from the lack of thrust coming from direction that it would normally have been expected.

With that in mind, note that most of the engines that are out are on the outer ring, and bunched together. That could mean a LOT of thrust to be compensated for. Could it be that thrust inbalances exposed a weakness in the hull?

The upper stage was found to have a weakness in the hull, which was fixed. This was while it was being tested for the landing maneuver back in 2021. If one stage of the rocket had a weakness, then perhaps the upper also had a weakness.

This theory was bandied about yesterday in my readings. Thought I'd pass it along.

Update, 4.20.23

Launch mount damage.   Not good.

Some observations of the Starship launch failure today

The following clips are from a single video. It shows various stages of the launch progress before failure.

Shortly after clearing tower several engines are out

Below is a clip @ 1:39 in, and prior to malfunction:

2:24 into launch

At the 3 minute mark of clip, the rocket is shown in malfunctioning mode:

Failure mode

Here's another angle that shows something of a hiccup shortly after clearing the tower:



There are reports of damage due to flying debris on launch site. By now, there are plenty of videos of this that can be seen. A question is with all of the debris, could the debris have been a factor in the failure of the engines? Also, there is some speculation that with the engine failures, the rocket may have gotten some structural failure which led to the failure to separate, and thus preventing the Starship from continuing its flight.