A Falcon 9 first-stage booster tipped over and burst into flames on a landing barge off Cape Canaveral around 4 a.m. on Wednesday, August 28, 2024. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded every Falcon 9 launch within hours.
“It was destroyed,” said Ken Kremer, who founded the Space UpClose publication and tracks the industry. The booster had flown 23 times, a record for SpaceX’s reuse program. It had just helped put 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, and those satellites were not affected by the fire. Moments after touching down on the ocean platform, the stage fell over and erupted. It was SpaceX’s first accident of that kind in years.
Failures like this are rare for the company, which has made nearly 260 booster recoveries since 2021.
What the FAA wants
The agency says it will not clear SpaceX to fly again until it is satisfied the booster problem is fixed. In its words, return to flight depends on “the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety.” The FAA will oversee the investigation, and SpaceX needs approval of its findings and corrective actions before launches resume.
Don Platt, an associate professor of space systems at Florida Tech, listed what engineers will look for. “Was there a particular component that was operating out of speck? Was the temperature too high or too low? Was a pressure that wasn’t where it was supposed to be?”
A crowded night
SpaceX had a lot going on. In a span of hours it was trying to launch the crewed Polaris Dawn mission and two Starlink flights. Weather safety concerns delayed Polaris Dawn. The second Starlink launch, from California, was called off after the Florida accident.
Asked by FOX 35’s Esther Bower whether that was too much for one night, Kremer said: “To me, it’s too much to do, especially when you have a human launch.” Platt put it more cautiously. “Maybe we can say it’s just an unfortunate incident, but yeah, when you have people working on so many missions at once, you can have a checklist and things that aren’t completed as they should be.”
The private spaceflight planned from Kennedy Space Center that week is now uncertain. NASA’s next astronaut mission, slated for late September, may also slip.
This was not SpaceX’s first grounding in recent weeks. A separate Falcon 9 problem in July kept the rocket on the ground for two weeks.
Jon Edwards, a SpaceX vice president, said the company is working “ASAP” to understand what went wrong. “Losing a booster is always sad,” he wrote on X. “Each one of them has a unique history and character. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen often.”
Sources
- FAA grounds SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets after booster explodes off Florida Coast
- SpaceX grounded by FAA after Falcon 9 topples, burns on landing barge
