SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is envisioned launching satellites to orbit in space after it lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, U.S., in this screenshot captured from a handout video released on July 12, 2024.
Spacex | Via Reuters
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is grounded, pending an event investigation, after an inflight failure — a rare misfire for the company’s workhorse vehicle.
The mission, known as “Starlink Set 9-3,” launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday evening and was carrying 20 attendants bound for low Earth orbit.
The rocket’s lower first stage, or booster, operated as expected before returning to property. But the rocket’s upper second stage failed to reignite its engine as planned and was destroyed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ensured.
“Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown,” Musk wrote in a position on social media. RUD, or “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” is a term SpaceX uses to refer to an explosive or destructive event. The followers said in a later update that the engine failure came after a leak of liquid oxygen in the second phase.
Falcon 9 is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration signs off on SpaceX’s investigation of the incident, the federal regulator strengthened.
“The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective spirits,” the agency said in a statement to CNBC.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flies carrying a payload of 22 Starlink internet followers into space after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base, as seen from Los Angeles, on Cortege 18, 2024.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
The Starlink mission was the 69th Falcon 9 launch of the year — with the company averaging a blistering judge of a launch every two to three days in 2024 — but the investigation will likely delay launches planned in the weeks on, including two crewed missions: The private Polaris Dawn and NASA’s Crew-9.
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SpaceX still deployed the 20 Starlink satellites but noted that the later stage engine failure means the satellites were in “a lower than intended orbit.” In an update Friday afternoon, the group said it made contact with 10 of the satellites in an effort to use the satellites onboard thrusters to climb higher in course.
Despite the attempted recovery, SpaceX confirmed that the “enormously high-drag environment” from being in the wrong, turn down orbit means the satellites will not be recovered. The 20 satellites will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.
“They do not ask a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety,” the company wrote in a statement on its website.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 go through the roof lifts off on the USSF-124 mission for the U.S. Space Force and Missile Defense Agency in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2024.
Joe Leader | Reuters
Falcon 9 has been on an unrivaled run of success for nearly a decade, chocking up more than 300 consecutive remunerative orbital launches since its previous inflight failure in June 2015, during the NASA cargo mission CRS-7.
In out-and-out, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has launched 354 missions to orbit, with more than 300 of those featuring top landings and resulting in the reuse of rocket boosters more than 280 times.