For today's flight compared with IFT5 (bottom) you can see IFT5 kept its engines running longer during boostback. Showing that they aborted catch during the boostback process.

That was about 3 minutes before touchdown with a speed difference of about 575km/h so that would put the booster about 30km offshore. That's consistent with this puff of cloud that appears on GOES-16 imagerty just after launch

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SpaceX have commented on their website that it was a tower anomaly that triggered the divert.

This is correct, the default trajectory is to splash down, so if no command is sent/they set the return flag to FALSE, the booster follows the pre-determined splashdown path.

I’m hearing the damage was most likely done to the chopsticks 🥢 now. What do you think a nominal configuration could be for them during launches? Or is this why the shorter redesign on tower 2? Amazing notice on your part between IFT5 and 6!

They don’t “abort” the catch. The default program is to land the booster exactly where it landed. In order for a tower catch to occur, the default landing in the Gulf requires a deliberate manual override.

Do you think it's the tower problem then?

I know it's a tower problem. because after doing this I saw SpaceX posted saying it was a tower problem.

Interesting. Wonder if that is something @elonmusk will talk about. Good catch @DJSnM !

How many beers taken yet Scott?

I just got back home, will crack one open when I'm ready to record

I am honoured to get a reply back from you maestro. It was an ordinary taunt as i thought you may be commenting on Starship Flight test 6

It would be interesting to know how much further downrange the booster of Flt 6 was due to the lighter ship, and how much longer the boostback would have had to be to compensate.

Is that the only reason for a longer burn though?

Booster Flight Profile Comparison for IFT5 and 6

@JoeTegtmeyer I wonder if they decided to skip the catch because Trump was nearby. Either to prevent the tiniest chance of a catastrophe or just or avoid a mishap with wreckage (booster, tower and surrounding) because this was so high profile launch (again, due to Trump being around)

@JoeTegtmeyer I think it's a return of the ice problem ... they did a stopgap filtration.. But now they've got another idea... Flight eight will have the solution...

The shorten boost back burn is it implied to be an anomaly… Rather, it’s likely that the boost back burn was shorten because the tower anomaly would not allow for the catch… Thus, Shortening the distance & targeting the splash down point of shore in the gulf

That is correct and noted on the live stream.

IFT5-6 Starship Flight Profile Comparison

There were several things that didn’t seem to synch with the timeline with booster and ship that seemed early. I was wondering if it was all a result of pushing limits (they were gonna come in hotter anyway) or what? It is fascinating to sleuth it all out. Can’t wait for #7.

That makes more sense. When watching it, I thought that the boostback burn seemed shorter than on flight 5.

I was hoping this was not the case. I had thought SpaceX might be demonstrating that they could safely abort catch attempt, and land an acceptable distance off shore. A shortened boost back burn negates this. But, I am sure there’s plenty of other parameters proven and studied today.

Or they were going for a shallow return to reduce heating on the engine section. Seem much less red hot then flight 5

Wow

Any word on the aborted catch rationale? Vehicle, pad, weather. Heard speculation that the tower antenna was suspect, given that it had considerable deflection.

They have until the end of the boostback burn to divert, so more likely it was always on a different trajectory.