Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by sinuhe69 1161 days ago
Was well not the most critical part, though.
2 comments

You can see huge chunks of debris flying into the air on launch, and half a dozen engines were out by the time they were visible. The discolourations and asymmetry in the plume indicates damaged engines. The term of art is engine rich exhaust.

It looks like debris tore up the engines, which progressively lost more thrust and control authority as more engines failed, leading to the loss of the vehicle.

I'm guessing that undiverted flame and related debris could ricochet up to the rocket and cause problems.
Which could have been the cause of the dead engines during flight, which could have been the reason why it didn't make altitude and didn't separate.