JetBuddy wrote:One of two things happened:
1. The Falcon9 launch went as planned. The 1st and 2nd stages performed nominally. The Northrop Grumman made payload adapter failed to release Zuma, and it tumbled into the ocean with the 2nd stage. This would make SpaceX's statements that Falcon9 performed nominally true.
2. Or the Zuma satellite was compromised in some form prior to launch, and the only way to keep the satellite was to fake it's demise, while it at the same time works exactly as planned.
Or 3. Everything went exactly as planned and we just don't know what this flight was doing or testing.
As far as I can tell no one informed is actually saying it was a failure. It could have been testing a new adaptor and how it worked with the SpaceX interface for all we know. Or doing the "stealth" thing some have hypothesized. We just don't know yet.
We don't even know how much whatever it was really cost. Could have been a few million or a billion, the few million for a test to insure against the loss of a billion is very much something the government would do.
Tugg