SpaceX has established itself as a champion of reusable commercial rockets, with the enormous success of its Falcon 9 rocket making the company the benchmark against which other commercial launch operations are judged. The Falcon 9, which carries satellites for commercial entities and space agencies into low-Earth orbit, had a long string of flawless launches. But its most recent launch failed to deploy its payloads correctly, breaking that streak and serving as a reminder that even with well-trusted technology, space operations are still a challenge.
The launch was scheduled for yesterday, July 11, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Falcon 9 rocket was carrying 20 Starlink satellites to be added to SpaceX’s communications network. The booster separated from the rocket as planned and landed on SpaceX’s droneship for reuse, but a problem occurred with the rocket’s upper stage due to a leak of liquid oxygen.
This leak meant that the rocket could not fire its Merlin vacuum engine as expected and did not complete its second burn. The satellites were released, but not at the correct orbit, which means that they will fall back to Earth and burn up rather than entering low-Earth orbit as planned.
“The team worked overnight to make contact with the satellites in order to send early burn commands, but the satellites were left in an enormously high-drag environment only 135 kilometers above the Earth (each passthrough perigee removed 5+ km of altitude from the orbit’s apogee, or the highest point in the satellite orbit),” SpaceX wrote in a statement. “At this level of drag, our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites. As such, the satellites will reenter Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise. They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety.”
This was a now-rare failure for the Falcon 9 rocket, which has competed 364 successful launches to date. The last time a Falcon 9 launch failed was in 2016, when a rocket exploded on the launchpad.
Yesterday’s failure will result in the grounding of the Falcon 9 until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can investigate, CNBC reports. The FAA may require corrective actions before the rocket is allowed to launch once again.
