[tempaway444641]

T+37: Seems a little turny-aroundy in orbit there

and a bit "small-pieces-falling-offy"

Still, good job getting it there

T+43: seems to be turning around a bit too much for something thats got heat shields on one side and is about to re-enter

T+45: flaps moved, maybe that is supposed to get it the right way round, I get it now - it uses the flaps to orient for re-entry

T+46: the little bits of debris must be tiles coming off

T+46: flap glowing red, can see plasma (edit: spacex tweeted a video of this bit, its quite something https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1768279990368612354 note the camera position moves because the camera is on one of the forward flaps)

T+47: "biggest flying object ever in space" uh-oh

T+47: serious re-entry flames

T+48: loss of signal

T+54: still no signal

T+62: saying they lost signal via starlink and TDRS at same time so maybe that was the end of it

T+65: confirmed lost during re-entry

T+67: the presenters all eat a large pie. each.

[namaria]

I'm still in awe that I got to watch a reentry live stream just now. I wish I could tell my child self what wonders were in store. Watching humanity progress in real time is amazing.

[AnimalMuppet]

Kids. I got to watch a moon landing live. (Not a stream, and crummy resolution, but still...)

[Edit: I meant to be talking smack a bit, but don't let me ruin your enjoyment of the really amazing things that are happening now.]

[twh270]

Yeah, it's pretty awesome to watch "the first" of something! I wasn't born early enough to watch the moon landing, but I did watch the livestream of the first successful landing of a Falcon 9. Watching that bit of science fiction turn into reality was one of the more memorable moments of my life.

[namaria]

It's all good, I feel like we're all kids when we wonder about the universe

[pixl97]

>T+46: the little bits of debris must be tiles coming off

Seemed like ice to me, which itself can be it a problem. The vehicle didn't seem very stable even before this point so I'm wondering if we're getting ice build up on the cold gas thrusters which changed the control dynamics keeping the ship from flying stably.

[tempaway444641]

Yeah could be. Some of the debris looked very specific in shape though. On some shots of starship you can see missing tiles (not many though)

[K0balt]

It looked to me like a good portion of the debris was in fact tiles. It also seemed to me that there were significant attitude control deviations, both of which might have been significant factors in the unplanned disassembly event.

[rtkwe]

Right after the engine cut-offs for the second stage from the first burn you can see at least one tile missing and during the burn before that I also saw some dark flecks fly off.

It certainly looked like there was either a fairly continuous firing of the cold gas thrusters, a stream from the second stage engines, or some atmospheric effects from being in such a low orbit.