SpaceX
It’s been just 10 days since the Falcon 9 upper stage failed in flight, preventing the rocket from launching its 20 Starlink satellites into a suitable orbit. Because they were launched at a lower altitude than expected — about 135 kilometers above Earth’s surface and subject to atmospheric drag — the satellites eventually re-entered the planet’s atmosphere and burned up.
Typically, after a launch failure, the rocket will be sidelined for several months while engineers and technicians examine available data and debris to determine the cause, conduct tests, and develop a fix.
However, according to multiple sources, SpaceX was set to launch its Falcon 9 rocket late last week. The company currently has a launch window of at least 12:14 a.m. ET (04:14 UTC) on Wednesday for the Starlink 10-4 mission.
quick solution?
In summary of the anomaly It was published shortly after.SpaceX did not specify the cause of the failure other than to say: “The Merlin Vacuum Engine experienced a failure and was unable to complete the second burn.”
The company has not officially provided any additional information since then. However, the company’s engineers were able to identify the cause of the malfunction almost immediately, and according to sources, the fix was easy.
SpaceX was confident it would resume Falcon 9 launches a week after the failure, but it can’t do so while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates the incident.
To that end, SpaceX filed a request with the Federal Aviation Administration a week ago on July 15 to resume Falcon 9 launches while the anomaly investigation continues. “The FAA is reviewing the request and will be guided by data and safety at every step of the process,” the company said in a statement. The Federal Aviation Administration said In a statement issued at the time.
manned deck missions
So, as of today, SpaceX is waiting for a decision from the FAA on whether it will be allowed to resume Falcon 9 launches less than two weeks after the failure.
The company plans to launch at least three Starlink missions in quick succession from two launch pads in Florida and one in California to determine the effectiveness of the fix. The company wants to prove the reliability of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has logged more than 300 successful missions since its last failure during a pad accident in September 2016, ahead of two upcoming crewed missions.
There’s still a slim chance that the Polaris Dawn mission, piloted by commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman, will launch in early August. That will be followed by NASA’s Crew-9 mission, which will carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
Notably, none of these crewed missions require a second Merlin burn, which is where the failure occurred earlier this month during the Starlink mission.
