SN8 (the previous test vehicle in this series) did not explode in midair. It launched, climbed slowly to about 10km altitude, and then descended to land.
It remained under control for the entire flight, landed hard, buckled, and broke open. There was a big fireball from spilled propellant, and a few large pieces of debris (likely COPV's - composite-overwrapped pressure vessels containing compressed gasses) were thrown a few hundred meters or so.
A failure of this magnitude was anticipated by the preparations they had made (clearing a large area around the pad, plus safety notifications to keep aircraft and ships out of the area); nobody was endangered.
The vehicle had a flight termination system (self-destruct) which would have fired if it had gone significantly off course before it left the safety zone.
The site is on the Texas coast just north of the Mexican border; if it had EXPLODED in midair, perhaps some debris could have ended up in Mexico, but there is literally no way this could have endangered anything in any other US state.
Sure - everything can fail. Even on older already working Rockets.
It is just very unlikely that both the rocket will fail in such a way that you need the FTS and that the FTS itself will.
You mainly want it for scenarios where you cannot control the rocket at all anymore. In other cases it might be better to have it fall as a chunk into the sea.
It remained under control for the entire flight, landed hard, buckled, and broke open. There was a big fireball from spilled propellant, and a few large pieces of debris (likely COPV's - composite-overwrapped pressure vessels containing compressed gasses) were thrown a few hundred meters or so.
A failure of this magnitude was anticipated by the preparations they had made (clearing a large area around the pad, plus safety notifications to keep aircraft and ships out of the area); nobody was endangered.
The vehicle had a flight termination system (self-destruct) which would have fired if it had gone significantly off course before it left the safety zone.
The site is on the Texas coast just north of the Mexican border; if it had EXPLODED in midair, perhaps some debris could have ended up in Mexico, but there is literally no way this could have endangered anything in any other US state.