SpaceX’s Falcon 9 grounded after Starlink satellite failure

The incident occurred roughly an hour after Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday night. The rocket's second stage failed to reignite, deploying its 20 Starlink satellites on a shallow orbital path that will cause them to reenter and burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, explained that the attempt to reignite the engine resulted in a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD), or explosion, due to an unknown cause. The FAA stated that the Falcon 9 will remain grounded until SpaceX investigates and resolves the issue, a process that could take weeks or months.

This failure ends a streak of over 300 successful missions and disrupts SpaceX's launch schedule. Last year, Falcon 9 achieved 96 launches, surpassing any other country's annual launch total. The rocket is crucial for many countries and companies, including NASA, which relies on Falcon 9 for crewed missions to the International Space Station.

The failure, caused by a detected liquid oxygen leak, occurred on Falcon 9's 354th mission. It is the first failure since 2016, when a rocket exploded on a launch pad in Florida. Former SpaceX VP Tom Mueller acknowledged the setback but expressed confidence in the team's ability to fix the issue.

The grounding is likely to impact upcoming customer missions, including NASA's planned astronaut mission in August and the Polaris Dawn mission set for July 31. Jared Isaacman, head of the Polaris program, remains confident in SpaceX's recovery.

Since 2018, SpaceX has launched about 7,000 Starlink satellites for its global broadband network. Analysts estimate the lost satellites in this mission to be worth at least $10 million combined.