Last night during a routine Falcon 9 Starlink launch the vehicle experienced an anomaly with the upper stage. This led to an unsuccessful second burn and a deployment of the satellites into a lower-than-intended orbit. To put in perspective how rare this is for the company, it marks the first Falcon 9 failure in around 7 years after an over 300 mission success streak.
Importantly, the FAA has issued a few statements regarding an investigation and a note that SpaceX won’t be flying the vehicle until the agency has confirmed it’s safe to do so. With quite a few Falcon 9 missions scheduled in the near future, this could have a decent impact on future launch dates. Here I will go more in-depth into the FAA’s statement, the Falcon 9 anomaly, upcoming missions, and more.
Falcon 9 Is Grounded
Last night on the 11th SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 with 20 Starlink satellites on board. After liftoff, the vehicle cleared the tower, passed through max Q, and continued to stage separation without any issue. The booster even managed to return for a droneship landing. As for the upper stage, the initial engine ignition looked good up until around 4 minutes into the mission. At T + 4:07 in, if you focus on the thermal blanket just above the engine bell you can see what looks like a pop. Over the next few minutes, more and more ice begins building up on the upper stage, far more than normal. Eventually, the broadcast ended as per usual with the first upper-stage engine burn complete.
However, the issues spotted around the first burn would eventually lead to an unsuccessful second burn. SpaceX tweeted soon after, “During tonight’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink, the second stage engine did not complete its second burn. As a result, the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower than intended orbit.” Despite the lower-than-planned deployment of the satellites, SpaceX tried to keep them alive by raising their orbit using onboard thrusters. At the time they weren’t sure if the satellites would make it or not.
Earlier this morning they confirmed that none of the satellites will survive. Specifically in a tweet, they said, “The team made contact with 10 of the satellites and attempted to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters, but they are in an enormously high-drag environment with their perigee, or lowest point of their elliptical orbit, only 135 km above the Earth. Each pass through perigee removes 5+ km of altitude from the highest point in the satellite orbit. At this level of drag, our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites.” In one final tweet they confirmed, “As such, the satellites will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise. They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety.”
In addition to comments from SpaceX, the FAA also released some statements on the matter. Here they mentioned that they are aware of the anomaly and have begun an investigation into the matter. In a statement, they said, “An investigation is designing to further enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective actions to avoid it from happening again.” Importantly, related to future flights of Falcon 9 they said, “A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements.”
As far as what to expect based on these statements and the investigation, for the time being, we won’t see the Falcon 9 fly. The big question however is how long will the investigation take. It’s possible that the FAA confirms there was no threat to public safety and allows SpaceX to continue launching while the investigation continues. On the other hand, the FAA and even SpaceX might want to hold off until they have at least a decent understanding of what went wrong. In terms of upcoming launches, there are a few, some more important than others. For example, launching more Starlink satellites is one thing but just recently we learned that the Polaris Dawn mission is set to launch very soon. This will be a manned dragon flight and EVA outside the spacecraft. Obviously, the company wants to make sure the upper stage is working perfectly for a mission like that.
That launch didn’t have a specific date but the official statement was a launch no earlier than July 31st. Assuming the plan was to liftoff right around then, that will almost definitely be delayed as teams investigate the issue. On that mission, besides the human aspect, they are planning to go to a very high altitude. In a statement they say, “This Dragon mission will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon’s maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. Orbiting through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt, Polaris Dawn will conduct research with the aim of better understanding the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health.” In other words, a well working Falcon 9 booster and upper stage will be needed.
Besides Polaris Dawn, the other mission this investigation could impact is the Crew 9 launch. SpaceX Crew-9 is planned to be the ninth crewed operational NASA Commercial Crew flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the 15th overall crewed orbital flight. The mission was planned to launch no earlier than August 2024. NASA will likely require a complete investigation, and even multiple successful missions launching satellites before they give the ok to launch a crew of 4 to the International Space Station.
With all this in mind, we can expect somewhat significant delays to any crewed Falcon 9 missions within the next 6 weeks and a possible return of uncrewed flights not too long from now. A few of the other Falcon 9 missions that were scheduled not long from now included another Starlink launch on the 17th and multiple customer missions toward the end of this month as well as in August. The other thing to consider is whether the companies with satellites that SpaceX is set to launch will want to wait for the investigation to be complete. All of this points to more Starlink missions to build confidence and ensure the vehicle is operating as intended before going back toward normal launch operations.
After yesterday’s mission, SpaceX released an official statement on what happened. Here they said, “Falcon 9’s second stage performed its first burn nominally, however a liquid oxygen leak developed on the second stage. After a planned relight of the upper stage engine to raise perigee – or the lowest point of orbit – the Merlin Vacuum engine experienced an anomaly and was unable to complete its second burn. Although the stage survived and still deployed the satellites, it did not successfully circularize its orbit, but it did passivate itself as normally performed at the end of each mission. This left the satellites in an eccentric orbit with a very low perigee of 135 km, which is less than half the expected perigee altitude.”
They finished by saying, “This event is a reminder of how technically challenging spaceflight is. To date, we have completed 364 successful Falcon launches – safely carrying astronauts, customer payloads and thousands of Starlink satellites to orbit – making the Falcon family of rockets one of the most reliable in the world. SpaceX will perform a full investigation in coordination with the FAA, determine root cause, and make corrective actions to ensure the success of future missions. With a robust satellite and rocket production capability, and a high launch cadence, we’re positioned to rapidly recover and continue our pace as the world’s most active launch services provider” they said. While unfortunate, with the frequency at which the company was launching, it seemed like something had to go wrong eventually. Even still their overall record and success rate are plenty impressive.
Interestingly, regarding the launch, it wasn’t the booster that had been reused multiple times with an issue but instead the brand-new upper-stage. One of the big benefits of reusability is using and proving hardware is capable. While a few delays are expected due to the timing, we should get more information on them over the next few weeks. Polaris Dawn is very unique and they will definitely take their time. During that mission, at approximately 700 kilometers above the Earth, the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA) with SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, upgraded from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit.
Evolved from the Intravehicular Activity (IVA) suit, the EVA suit provides greater mobility, a state-of-the-art helmet heads-up display (HUD) and camera, new thermal management textiles, and materials borrowed from Falcon’s interstage and Dragon’s trunk. All of these enhancements to the EVA suit are part of a scalable design, allowing teams to produce and scale to different body types as SpaceX seeks to create greater accessibility to space for all of humanity. SpaceX points out that building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require millions of spacesuits. The development of this suit and the execution of the spacewalk will be important steps toward a scalable design for spacesuits on future long-duration missions as life becomes multi-planetary.
If all that wasn’t enough, while in orbit, the crew also plans to conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights. This includes, but is not limited to: Using ultrasound to monitor, detect, and quantify venous gas emboli (VGE), contributing to studies on human prevalence to decompression sickness; Gathering data on the radiation environment to better understand how space radiation affects human biological systems, and more.
Conclusion
SpaceX just experienced the first Falcon 9 mission failure in quite a few years after an upper-stage liquid oxygen leak. The FAA released a statement confirming that for the time being the Falcon 9 will not launch as they investigate the issue. This will likely delay the upcoming crewed Falcon 9 missions and maybe other launches as well. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.