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SpaceX has officially grounded its primary workhorse, the Falcon 9 rocket, following a technical malfunction with its upper stage. This pause in operations comes at a critical time, as the rocket is scheduled to launch four astronauts soon. The Crew-12 mission, a vital flight to the International Space Station (ISS), now faces an uncertain future depending on how quickly engineers can diagnose and fix the issue.
The grounding follows a recent launch. During this mission, a Falcon 9 rocket delivered Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) as intended. However, the mission was not entirely flawless. After the satellites were deployed, the rocket's upper stage failed to execute its deorbit burn. This specific maneuver is designed to lower the rocket's trajectory, causing it to reenter Earth's atmosphere and undergo a controlled destruction. Instead, the upper stage remained in orbit longer than planned.
In response to the incident, SpaceX issued a statement via the social media platform X. The company announced that their teams are currently reviewing data to determine the root cause of the failure. "Teams are reviewing data to determine root cause and corrective actions before returning to flight," the statement read. This formal announcement confirmed that the Falcon 9 fleet is grounded until a solution is found.
The Falcon 9 remains the world's busiest rocket by a significant margin. By the time of this grounding, the rocket had completed fourteen liftoffs this year. Its reputation for reliability is equally impressive; the vast majority of missions conducted recently have been successful. While anomalies do occur, they are rare compared to the total number of flights. One notable incident involved a Starlink launch earlier this year where the Falcon 9 first stage toppled shortly after landing on a drone ship at sea, resulting in its destruction. Fortunately, the booster had successfully completed its primary job in the upward direction, and all Starlink satellites were deployed into orbit as planned.
Previous investigations into such issues have led to temporary halts. When the earlier anomaly occurred, SpaceX paused Falcon 9 launches while they investigated the problem. Investigators eventually traced the failure to a fuel leak in one of the booster's nine Merlin engines. This leak caused a fire shortly after the rocket touched down, which weakened a landing leg and caused the vehicle to tip over. While the exact cause of the current upper stage failure is still unknown, the pattern suggests that a systematic review will reveal the specific technical defect.