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by gvb 1151 days ago
As long as the trajectory of the vehicle stays within the "safe trajectory box", the range safety officer has no reason to blow the rocket up.

SpaceX acquired a huge amount of data that would have otherwise been lost if the RSO was "quick on the trigger."

Example of a different rocket failure where the range safety officer let the rocket survive until it exceeded the safe trajectory box:

"Astra Rocket 3 LV0006 drifting launch & failure (NASASpaceFlight footage)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxVoBlgzZlQ

1 comments

You can’t assume you can trigger a system after it has undergone extreme structural loads or failure. So waiting until that happens while rocket is, charitably, careening does not ensure staying in any box.

I doubt they had any uplink or downlink during that mode so there’s no data to be had.

Prediction: the FAA will come down hard on them.

So if you "can't assume you can trigger a system" in this situation, you rely upon an automatic system, not a RSO. Which is exactly what SpaceX did. I'm sure this was fully documented in the approval process.