🇺🇸▼
SpaceX is working urgently to return its Falcon 9 rocket to service following a technical malfunction. This effort comes after a Starlink satellite launch on Monday, February 2nd, encountered a significant problem. The mission successfully placed 25 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, launching from a facility in California. However, the rocket's upper stage failed to perform a planned maneuver known as a deorbit burn. This section of the rocket is responsible for the final push that separates the satellites and ensures that spent hardware safely disposes of itself.
Because of this failure, the upper stage could not conduct a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Instead, the hardware fell back to the planet in an uncontrolled fashion. It is important to note that the Falcon 9's first stage, which is designed to be reusable, completed a perfect landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. While the primary mission of delivering satellites was a success, the disposal of the rocket body was not.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates commercial spaceflight, has required SpaceX to conduct a thorough investigation into this anomaly. Consequently, the company has grounded the entire Falcon 9 fleet while this inquiry is underway. The length of this stand-down is of great importance to the space industry. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch NASA's Crew-12 astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on February 11th. While it is too early to make a definitive prediction about when flights will resume, recent history offers some useful clues about the potential timeline.
The event on Monday marks the fourth incident involving a Falcon 9 upper stage in the past 19 months. Understanding the nature of these recent issues helps explain the current situation and the urgency with which the FAA is proceeding.
The first of these recent issues occurred on July 11, 2024, during another Starlink launch. A leak of liquid oxygen developed in the upper stage. This malfunction caused the satellites to be deployed into an orbit that was lower than intended. Atmospheric drag at this lower altitude quickly pulled the satellites down, and they burned up completely in Earth's atmosphere. The FAA mandated an investigation, which took two weeks to complete. The Falcon 9 was cleared to launch again on July 25, 2024, and successfully returned to flight with a Starlink mission two days later.
A second anomaly happened on September 28, 2024, during the launch of the Crew-9 astronaut mission to the ISS. While the Falcon 9 successfully delivered the crew to their destination, the upper stage performed what is termed an "off-nominal" deorbit burn. This means the burn did not proceed exactly as planned. The result was that the rocket body reentered Earth's atmosphere outside of its intended target zone. The FAA once again required an investigation. Clearance for normal flight operations was granted on October 11, 2024. However, the agency did grant SpaceX a special exemption for the October 7 launch of the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft. This mission was exempted because it sent the asteroid-inspecting probe far beyond low Earth orbit and did not involve a planned reentry of the upper stage into Earth's atmosphere.