That was the best result that could have happened. I was expecting Raptor to fail, vehicle losing control on the way down, etc. But the result we got was the best we could have hoped for outside of SN8 standing tall on the landing pad. It may still take a few SN prototypes to get everything down. Raptors may fail on the ascent, a valve may fail, Raptor may fail to relight, but those are just basically component reliability aspects. This test flight proved their simulations and computer models were fairly damn accurate. And all it took to get that data is one single flight. Solve the header tank pressurization problem, SN9 may vary well survive its flight if everything else mirrors SN8's flight. This is the mind boggling part.
giggity
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