FAA Ground Falcon 9
The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket — the space launch industry’s most prolific workhorse — after a rare in-flight failure.
Further launches have been put on hold pending an investigation into the loss of a mission on Thursday night, in which the second stage of an uncrewed Falcon 9 suffered a liquid oxygen leak and broke up, failing to send 20 Starlink satellites to orbit.
“We will investigate the issue and look for any other potential near misses,” stated Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive officer and chief engineer.
The duration of Falcon 9’s grounding will be determined by the pace and outcome of the investigation and will set back SpaceX’s intensive launch schedule.
That schedule over the coming weeks includes the deployment of more Starlinks, an Arctic weather satellite, a research satellite for UK Space Command, cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and, in August, the launch of four astronauts to the station on a Crew Dragon capsule spacecraft.
The FAA released a statement acknowledging the anomaly.
“The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 9-3 mission that launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 11. The incident involved the failure of the upper stage rocket while it was in space. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation....The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions,” the agency continued." - FAA Statement