https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap-BkkrRg-o...

The official webcast, starting at the launch. Rewatch it over & over, looking at the flaps & engines in different panels. Pretty stressful with no-one announcing the engine cutoffs. Pretty exciting seeing something bigger than a space shuttle heading uphill under its own power. Apparently, the exciting engine outs during ascent were planned, hence no flight termination. The engine outs during the landing weren't planned, hence the RUD.

It was surprisingly not a parabolic trajectory. It was powered all the way to apogee rather than coasting like spaceship 2, then slammed the nose down right after apogee. Expected it to start tumbling out of control, but it somehow arrested the flip just in time. Apparently, the nose is so light even with the header tank that just a tiny twitch of the nose flap was required to keep it level. The nose flaps were almost all the way up during descent.

It was another nail biter when 2 engines reignited, flipped it vertical & it appeared to tumble out of control, but then the engines pitched all the way over at the last moment, stopping the tumble when it was vertical. Wasn't sure if only 2 were planned for landing or if a 3rd failed to start completely.

As expected, restarting the engines was the tricky bit. Low methane header tank pressure was blamed. Tank pressure is probably why the static fires take months to pull off. It may not be a closed loop controller but some reliance on boiloff rate & luck. Unlike liftoff, the engines would be programmed to give it a hail mary despite low tank pressure. Then, the exhaust turned green as the oxygen rich mixture melted the innards. Then came the sound of 6 months of welding getting smashed to bits.

Interesting that the nose was still intact if a bit toasty, in the rubble. It hit the east edge of the landing pad & took out the tent.