Just one month after returning to flight, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is grounded again after a booster failed to land safely early Wednesday morning.
“The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 8-6 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on August 28. The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a droneship at sea,” the FAA said in a statement. “No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.”
Record of success: Upon attempting to land on SpaceX’s drone ship, the first stage booster “tipped over,” according to the company, creating a fireball. It was the booster’s 23rd launch. Engineers are studying data from the booster, the company shared on social media.
It marks the first unsuccessful booster landing for SpaceX in more than three years.
Déjà vu: Falcon 9 was grounded last month after a failure on July 11. The rocket was unable to complete its second stage burn due to a liquid oxygen leak and deployed 20 Starlink satellites too low to remain in orbit. It returned to flight on July 28 with back-to-back launches from the Cape and Vandenberg.
On the chopping block: It’s not clear how long the investigation will last, and how long Falcon 9 will be Earthbound. But SpaceX is staring down at two high-profile crewed missions slated to launch in the next month.
- Private astronauts attempting the first commercial spacewalk during the Polaris Dawn mission are awaiting launch as early as Friday.
- The Crew-9 team of astronauts is expected to launch to the ISS aboard a Dragon spacecraft on Sept. 24.
