Starship Flight 7

Does SpaceX bother with NOTAM for its launches?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAM

It seems like the flights should have been planned around it so no diversion would be needed.

They do but its not clear to me whether the area where it broke up was actually included in the original NOTAM. The NOTMAR definitely does not according to the graphic shown on the NASASpaceflight stream. They are still live so I can't link a time code but something like -4:56 in this stream as of posting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nM3vGdanpw

Since i couldn't find the time code in the video, i put a map together with both NOTAM and NOTMAR.

map: https://github.com/kla-s/Space/blob/main/Map_NOTMAR_NOTAM_Sp... description: https://github.com/kla-s/Space/tree/main

Lets hope this is the year of Linux desktop and i didn't violate any licenses or made big errors ;)

My understanding is that there are areas which are noted as being possible debris zones across the flight path, but that aircraft are not specifically told to avoid those areas unless there an actual event to which to respond.

If my understanding is correct, it seems sensible at least in a hand-wavy way: you have a few places where things are more likely to come down either unplanned or planned (immediately around the launch site and at the planned deorbit area), but then you have a wide swath of the world where, in a relatively localized area, you -might- have something come down with some warning that it will (just because the time it takes to get from altitude to where aircraft are). You close the priority areas, but you don't close the less likely areas pro-actively, but only do so reactively, it seems you'd achieve a balance between aircraft safety and air service disruptions.

Actually, this video is a good indication for exactly what transpired:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hIXB62bUE

It's ATC audio captured during the event.

This video, the map elsewhere in this subthread, and the stream recording give a nicely detailed view into what went down. It seems like everything went like it was supposed to in terms of pre-warning, but based on the video the information didn't make it to pilots with coinciding flight plans until after the fact.

As far as I understand airline pilots have a high level of authority and diverting probably was the right call depending on the lag between seeing it and knowing what it was or if there was a risk of debris reaching them. They wouldn't necessarily know how high it got or what that means for debris.

Yeah... and ATC for a good while didn't have any estimate for time to resolution. So, do you run the airplane's fuel down to a minimal reserve level in hopes that the restrictions might lift... or just call it done and divert?

I think it's an absolutely reasonable choice to just say comfortably divert rather than try to linger in hopes of it not lasting too long and possibly ending up diverting anyway... but on minimums.