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by simfoo 831 days ago
1000 km/h booster impact at sea, call that a "soft landing/splash down". Poor fishies :)
3 comments

Hopefully the NASA flight monitoring the launch has video of the booster coming back down.
The WB-57 was not in the air today.
I guess they didn’t want to make it too easy for some Chinese fishing vessels ;)
Chinese fishing vessels in the Gulf of Mexico?
Illegal fishing by Chinese fleets is now commonplace in Africa, in Argentina, etc [0], so given how much they've expanded operations over the years it's only a matter of time before you see them there too, if it hasn't happened already.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/26/world/asia/ch...

Some species are rare. You need to look in the right places if you want to catch some fine raptors.
On shores of Africa, in Gulf of Mexico... yes, in 2024 ships can travel far
Probably even in Lake Superior.
I was going to write that a boat could get from the ocean into Lake Superior without ever entering the United States (by hugging the Canadian side of all lakes and rivers), but it appears that there is a dam on the St Lawrence River near Cornwall Ontario that forces you to take a short <10 mile detour through a river/canal in New York.
They are on vacation.
It does look like it came down rather fast. Engines only partially re-lit. About 34min in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWM1NQ1tZEU&t=2112s

I think that's the ascent burn. It doesn't look like the engines re-lit at all for the descent. (I imagine they aren't supposed to light until they're a lot closer to the ground than they were when the video was lost.)
At altitude 22km superheavy was moving at 4310 kmh (34:18 in linked video) speed then dropped continually, at 34:45 in the video the icons show that 3 engines were lit, altitude was 1km and speed was 1300 kmh. At 34:49 you can see flames, speed continues to drop, then you see the sea rushing up, then it cuts
Ah, I was thinking about Starship. I forgot that the booster attempted simulated landing was going on at the same time.