This was a incredible milestone. Perfect liftoff and some of the most important data ever collected that will make future flights a breeze.
The fact that it didn’t explode at ignition is already more than I expected
This is a great success for the team. The entire assembly survived through MaxQ. Lots of valuable data collected to improve the next iteration. With rocket tests, failures are THE path to success.
Here is the full launch video and the explosion:
It is all about passing milestones. This flight passed two of them when it cleared the pad and when it passed max Q. That is what makes this test very successful. Now that it is known where some of the weaknesses are, future tests will probably pass more milestones until they have a reliable vehicle. For a first test on a prototype vehicle, this test was amazingly successful. The engineers have a lot to be proud of here. Of course, I am old enough to remember Redstones and Atlases blowing up on the pads before we began using them to carry the first astronauts during the Mercury Project.
