FAA grounds SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket following landing mishap

A streak shot of the Starlink 8-6 mission showing the Falcon 9 rocket flying away from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Aug. 28, 2024. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now

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, which had earlier helped launch a batch of satellites for the Starlink network.

The booster, serial number B1062 in the SpaceX fleet, suffered a hard landing, at the tail end of its record-setting 23rd flight. It was consumed in a fireball on the deck of the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean about 250 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. The mishap was the first booster landing failure since February 2021.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that while no public injuries or public property damage was reported, “The FAA is requiring an investigation.”

SpaceX lost its flight leader booster, tail number B1062, during its landing attempt on the droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This was the booster’s 23rd flight. Image: SpaceX

The FAA made a similar declaration following a Falcon 9 upper-stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, which resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. Following that incident, SpaceX rockets did not return to flight until the Starlink 10-9 mission, on July 27.

“Losing a booster is always sad. Each one of them has a unique history and character. Thankfully this doesn’t happen often, due to the robust design and vigilance of the team,” said Jon Edwards, the SpaceX vice president of Falcon Launch Vehicles, said in a social media post. 

“We are working as hard as we can to thoroughly understand root cause and get corrective actions in place ASAP. One thing we do know though is this was purely a recovery issue and posed no threat to primary mission or public safety.”

The booster failure came the same week that SpaceX had to twice delay a launch attempt of the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission, first due to a helium leak and then for recovery weather at the end of the mission.

“Challenging week for sure, but launch takes #grit and the team will persevere,” wrote Kiko Dontchev, the SpaceX vice president of Launch on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Edwards’ post. “Lessons learned from recovery failures will not only improve recovery reliability, but also ascent reliability.”

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience stands atop the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A ahead of the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now

The Polaris Dawn crew remain in quarantine for now, according to social media posts from Isaacman, but the timing of the next launch attempt is uncertain. In addition to landing weather concerns and resolving the FAA investigation, there is also the matter of launch pad availability.

Polaris Dawn is set to take off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. That pad is needed for the launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which has a narrow planetary launch window that opens Oct. 10.

It takes SpaceX about three weeks to turn the pad over from a Falcon 9 to a Falcon Heavy configuration, so Polaris Dawn needs to vacate pad 39A soon or face further delay.

Complicating matters, SpaceX is already using its other Florida pad, Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for NASA’s Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station, which is set for no earlier than Sept. 24.

The timing of Polaris Dawn’s launch will ultimately depend on how quickly the FAA clears SpaceX to return to flight and how the weather plays ball.