What's with the small fire near the base of the booster? Seems like they'd want to extinguish that before it causes damage.

I don’t think there is a way to.
Other videos showed some damage in the chine area where maybe COPVs live.

And it landed in the Indian Ocean. Nice touch to have a buoy nearby to record the landing.

Wow, that might go down as the most technically advanced thing I've ever seen happen live. Absolutely incredible.

Chip-

That was epic. Perfect catch. Way to go SpaceX.

If it’s the one I think you’re referring to, watching a replay I see venting begin from that COPV cover, which is then ignited by the engine exhaust, so it’s methane. I think the cover continued to burn until the methane was gone and the cover burned out. It looks like the same thing happened on FT4, so some work needs to be done there, but they have a reusable booster!

They still have a lot of work to do on protection of those flaps on Starship though.

I think this ship was still the obsolete design and Block 2 has different flaps in a different position.

And they stated they were testing an ablative material that goes under the ceramic shields and in some places with no shields so who knows what we were seeing.

Chip-

Engineering is what made the world what it is and what will make tomorrow better than today. Hope = engineering.

And imagine the legions of kids around the world watching this and being motivated to do such careers.

I am a fan.

Truly amazing...no small feat.

We were landing rockets back in the 90's....but not on the launch pad.

Not original but I heard and liked: "design=destiny"

They were doing testing of multiple materials, but that's not where the failure occurred. The burn through happened on the aft flap hinge, which was the same area that was affected on flight 4. This time was much better, lasting longer and not as badly damaged, but still the same issue. It's just hard to keep plasma rom leaking through a gap like that hinge joint, and that's where they're vulnerable. The front flaps didn't seem to have the problem, but IIRC they did OK on flight 4 as well.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem, but that hinge joint needs to stay a lot cooler.

That’s part why B2 and B3 variants have the hinges moved more “upwards” I heard.
Get them past that waterline area.

What a booster! Still buzzing.