Darn!
Coming that close, the restart of the next countdown is harder. Water flush systems were running, rocket tanks were topped off and cooled down, internal power had been on for a bit. Takes a while to get everything ready to get “ready to restart”.
I was watching. Flames erupted around the bases of the first stage and boosters. Looked like they were 6 to 8 feet tall, not pressurized but just licking around the cases. Black sooty smoke came from them, rising the entire length of the delta IV. I was expecting an explosive failure any second. I saw no signs of any extinguishers or other automated fire suppression. The flames just died out, as if whatever was burning had been completely consumed.
The fire looked like it was outside the nozzles!? Next to but Not the rocket boosters themselves, perhaps. But I believe the ignitores on these SRBs are well within the casings.
Frankly, since it didn’t blow up, it ought to take 5 minutes to figure out what was burning. Why and How ignited, that may be a challenge.
With Delta IV reliability, does anyone recall a similar incident, either on a single or heavy?
Has anyone wondered about sabotage yet?
Yeah, not exactly like “she’s flooded, just give it a little while for the gas to evaporate then try again...”