SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration for the second time in less than two months, following the failed landing of a first-stage booster that had earlier helped launch a batch of satellites for the Starlink network.
The booster rocket, serial number B1062 in SpaceX's fleet, suffered a hard landing at the end of its record-breaking 23rd flight. It burned up in a fireball on the deck of the unmanned spacecraft “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” which was parked in the Atlantic Ocean about 250 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. The mishap was the first failed landing for a booster rocket since February 2021.
In a statement Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that while no injuries or damage to public property were reported, “the FAA is requesting an investigation.”
The FAA made a similar statement following a Falcon 9 upper stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, which resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. After that incident, SpaceX rockets did not fly again until the Starlink 10-9 mission on July 27.
“Losing a rocket is always sad. Each one has a unique story and character. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen often, due to the team’s robust design and vigilance,” said Jon Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, in a social media post.
“We are working as hard as we can to fully understand the root cause and take corrective action as quickly as possible. What we do know is that this was purely a recovery issue and did not pose any threat to the primary mission or public safety.”
The booster failure came the same week that SpaceX twice had to delay a launch attempt for its Polaris Dawn astronaut mission, first because of a helium leak and then because of recovery weather at the end of the mission.
“A challenging week for sure, but launching takes time. #sand “The team will persevere,” Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch at X, formerly of Twitter, wrote in response to Edwards’ post. “Lessons learned from recovery failures will not only improve recovery reliability, but ascent reliability as well.”
He Polaris Dawn Crew According to Isaacman's social media posts, the astronauts will remain in quarantine for now, but the timing of the next launch attempt is uncertain. In addition to concerns about landing weather and the resolution of the FAA investigation, there is also the matter of launch pad availability.
Polaris Dawn is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. That pad is needed for the launch of NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which has a narrow planetary launch window that opens Oct. 10.
SpaceX needs about three weeks to switch the pad from a Falcon 9 to a Falcon Heavy configuration, so Polaris Dawn must vacate pad 39A soon or face further delays.
To complicate matters, SpaceX is already using its other pad in Florida, Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, for NASA’s Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station, which is scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 24.
The timing of Polaris Dawn's launch will ultimately depend on how quickly the FAA clears SpaceX to fly again and how the weather holds up.
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