FAA Grounds SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket Following Landing Mishap (spaceflightnow.com) 54
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded by the FAA for the second time in less than two months following the failed landing of a first-stage booster, which was destroyed in a fireball after its 23rd flight. Spaceflight Now reports: The booster, serial number B1062 in the SpaceX fleet, suffered a hard landing, at the tail end of its record-setting 23rd flight. It was consumed in a fireball on the deck of the drone ship 'A Shortfall of Gravitas', which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean about 250 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. The mishap was the first booster landing failure since February 2021. In a statement on Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that while no public injuries or public property damage was reported, "The FAA is requiring an investigation."
The FAA made a similar declaration following a Falcon 9 upper-stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, which resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. Following that incident, SpaceX rockets did not return to flight until the Starlink 10-9 mission, on July 27. [...] The booster failure came the same week that SpaceX had to twice delay a launch attempt of the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission, first due to a helium leak and then for recovery weather at the end of the mission. The Polaris Dawn crew remain in quarantine for now, according to social media posts from Isaacman, but the timing of the next launch attempt is uncertain. In addition to landing weather concerns and resolving the FAA investigation, there is also the matter of launch pad availability.
The FAA made a similar declaration following a Falcon 9 upper-stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, which resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. Following that incident, SpaceX rockets did not return to flight until the Starlink 10-9 mission, on July 27. [...] The booster failure came the same week that SpaceX had to twice delay a launch attempt of the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission, first due to a helium leak and then for recovery weather at the end of the mission. The Polaris Dawn crew remain in quarantine for now, according to social media posts from Isaacman, but the timing of the next launch attempt is uncertain. In addition to landing weather concerns and resolving the FAA investigation, there is also the matter of launch pad availability.
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:4)
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IIRC = If I Recall Correctly. He apparently tried to recall the flight ID by memory.
If you can't be bothered to get that right, why the hell should anyone give any credence to anything you say?
..says the Anonymous Coward...
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These flights are not test flights.
Exactly. This wasn't a test flight. The landing/recovery is no longer billed as "experimental".
The landings have nothing to do with the mission profile,
Sure they do. SpaceX said they were launching and landing the rocket. That's what the FAA license (most likely) said. They only completed half of that successfully.
We all know what this is
We ALL do, eh?
this administration throwing road blocks at Elon wherever they can because they didn't like Tesla not being unionized
Or, just possibly, their rocket failed to do what they said it was going to do. And based on their license agreement with the FAA it needs to be investigated before they can return to flight. https://www.faa.gov/space/comp... [faa.gov] "Unplanned
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
And based on their license agreement with the FAA it needs to be investigated before they can return to flight. https://www.faa.gov/space/comp [faa.gov]... [faa.gov] "Unplanned permanent loss of the vehicle" seems to apply here.
Its still a ridiculous move by the FAA to ground all Falcon 9 launches until the FAA investigates and makes a determination. You're talking billions of dollars of launches being held up, when its "obvious" the rocket works successfully in launching and delivering its payload safely. Currently, only SpaceX has the technology to land its rocket boosters, and plans their rockets landings onto ocean ship platforms, which mitigates any potential threat to local humans. Why even design and implement an ocean ship landing platform, if the FAA is going to indefinitely shut you down for every failed landing (especially given that automated booster landings is a new technology inherently prone to mysterious failure)?
This is government lawfare
Cry harder, maybe Trump will give you a pat on the head.
It doesn't have to be a gov't conspiracy; it could be gov't braindead adherence to legal regulation of businesses to the detriment of the public good and investors. But apparently you must believe Mark Zuckerberg and Matt Taibbi were lying about the federal gov't trying to manipulate public perception through control of social media companies. In any case, FAA regulatory overreach is not a good thing in this instance.
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Its still a ridiculous move by the FAA to ground all Falcon 9 launches until the FAA investigates and makes a determination. You're talking billions of dollars of launches being held up, when its "obvious" the rocket works successfully in launching and delivering its payload safely. Currently, only SpaceX has the technology to land its rocket boosters, and plans their rockets landings onto ocean ship platforms, which mitigates any potential threat to local humans. Why even design and implement an ocean ship landing platform, if the FAA is going to indefinitely shut you down for every failed landing (especially given that automated booster landings is a new technology inherently prone to mysterious failure)?
I actually don't think it's ridiculous for the FAA to ground aircraft and spacecraft when there's an unplanned loss of vehicle. This will very likely be a short grounding while SpaceX says "there's no danger to the uninvolved public on these missions, we'll do an investigation before we fly anything with elevated risk."
In particular, it's important to make sure whatever caused this loss is not an early marker of something that could cause range safety issues on future flights.
Also: While they do land normal
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While this should not factor into anything, Musk's penchant for giving regulators a vigorous middle finger probably does not encourage them to let things slide or hurry things along.
Scrubbing commercial launches to make extra super safe boosters that land away from land and people is the definition of gov't incompetence which destroys American based businesses.
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Its still a ridiculous move by the FAA to ground all Falcon 9
Is it though? Why did the landing fail? Is it that failure something that could affect a future launch? (Not a future landing, a future launch.) You cannot answer that question until there's an investigation. Until you answer that question, is it safe to continue flying? Yeah, most likely. But that's why they have the "FAA public safety determination" process. I assume that's what they did after they blew up the second stage a little while ago. They were back flying in very short order after that incident,
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
While the failure was on landing, they need to determine the root cause. If the problem was engine-related, then it's possible that there's a problem that could arise at other points in a mission where it would really matter.
That said, the most likely answer is that a landing leg failed due to a combination of a harder landing than usual and stress from the previous 22 landings. But it's hard to tell from just the public video without any internal data.
It's reasonable that the FAA will want answers. It's also likely that SpaceX will be able to satisfy them that it's a landing-only issue, so they can resume flights quickly.
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+1 Agree
SpaceX has had two significant mission incidents in the last few months. Hitting the pause button to make sure there isn't a bigger problem is a good thing.
Full disclosure: I say this as a HUGE fan of the work they're doing.
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During testing they flew the rockets in areas where a failure wouldn't be a danger to other people, e.g. over closed airspace and sea.
Now they are operating in areas where other people are, so a potential failure of a booster, partially fuelled, falling from the sky and exploding when it hits the ground, is a concern.
SpaceX wants to reduce costs by relying on things not failing and falling on people, like airlines do, so they have to accept this level of scrutiny.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
During testing they flew the rockets in areas where a failure wouldn't be a danger to other people, e.g. over closed airspace and sea.
Now they are operating in areas where other people are, so a potential failure of a booster, partially fuelled, falling from the sky and exploding when it hits the ground, is a concern.
SpaceX wants to reduce costs by relying on things not failing and falling on people, like airlines do, so they have to accept this level of scrutiny.
Yes, this isn't picking on Musk, as some might think.
And investigating isn't a punishment. Determining the cause of an accident - as you noted - is a really good way to make the Falcons better rockets.
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SpaceX wants to reduce costs by relying on things not failing and falling on people, like airlines do, so they have to accept this level of scrutiny.
SpaceX also wants to avoid financial blowback by failing to meet contract timelines for their customers. Its inevitable that Musk is going to send out a team to investigate the landing failure, because lowering launch costs tenfold comes from recycling previously used boosters. But its a disservice to SpaceX and their customers by regulatory overreach preventing launches in order to investigate failed landings in the middle of the ocean to avoid public casualties.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
An investigation, not a grounding. (Score:5, Informative)
The FAA's call for an investigation is quite consistent with their mandate to improve safety and efficiency of space transport.
However, nowhere is there a call for grounding the rocket.
Clearly SpaceX will stop launching until they are confident they have found the cause of this failure, they hate losing boosters for nothing.
But they are free to launch as they wish.
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They don't appear to be too concerned with the safety and efficiency of the landings associated with the Atlas or Vulcan rockets...
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Although Boeing makes billions on government contracts, it's a drop in the bucket. ($24 Billion in revenue for space/military contracts, and they're not as big and profitable as you think - The US spends double that on Coca-Cola alone... doubt there are people who care enough/have enough to lose to actually actively shift federal agency policy to save face for Boeing- especially since NASA wants two programs capable of delivering payloads for them... so they need Boeing AND SpaceX to succeed. There aren't
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For sure an investigation is warranted. Space X will want to know what failed. But I am not convinced a grounding is warranted. There may be a good reason that was not given in the article. But at face value it feels like a double standard. if this was Boeing they would get an award for having a booster fly 23 times. For Space X they get grounded because of a landing failure.
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Just to be clear, if SpaceX goes up and rescues the astronauts, this is a major black eye for Boeing.
Its not "if". Its been decided that Boeing cannot implement repairs to its Starliner systems with sufficient certainty the test crew will survive re-entry and landing. (It will be interesting to see if the repaired Starliner capsule will be able to successfully automate a return to Earth for the first time.) SpaceX will be bringing back the "stranded" astronauts with their next SpaceX launch to the ISS, in February 2025, because the Dragon capsule has already made successful dockings and returns to earth
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However, nowhere is there a call for grounding the rocket.
Where did you find that information? Everything I can find says they are grounded. I can't find a link to the actual FAA statement, but there are numerous articles with quotes from it that indicate SpaceX cannot launch. For example [spacenews.com]:
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Maybe they should be more worried about stranding crews onboard the ISS, oh wait that's NASA, not the FAA. Why is the FAA not involved in that issue but involved in the issue of a booster falling over after a landing leg didn't lock? The FAA charter seems to be stretched a bit too thin and NASA should start handling space launch systems exclusively. That would prevent the FAA from investigating issues that it's overreacting upon and focus on things like door panels falling off mid-flight or improving air tr
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Again, legal case, politically motivated, FAA is being pressured to be over-officious in anything that happens with SpaceX, but Boeing not so much. Then again, Boeing is a burning pile of trash right now so it'll take multiple gov't agencies to clean that up. Then again, any gov't that allows millions of so-called "Asylees and refugees" without vetting is a bigger pile of burning trash. When you start by eliminating meritocracy and push DEI horseshit you get Boeing, not SpaceX.
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"without vetting" Asylees and refugee are vetted, for the veracity of their claims and for any criminal history.
Now I know you're full of shit.
If that were the case, how would the DHS miss a whole bunch of implants? [nbcnews.com]
Or Another. It's a real eye-opener [nbcnews.com]
Oh, and the heads of the FAA, NASA, DHS, et al serve at the discretion of President Dementia. Good luck with your "vetting." You realize the head of DHS was impeached right? Naw, you'll ignore that too and preach the moronic "refugee" bullshit along with Elon bad, Boeing good crap.
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WTF (Score:4, Informative)
It is pretty clear that a landing leg simply didn't lock. It came in dead center on the ship and it touched down softly. .... then tipped over. A smidge of residual fire from the engine upon touchdown isn't really unheard of.
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It is pretty clear that a landing leg simply didn't lock. It came in dead center on the ship and it touched down softly. .... then tipped over. A smidge of residual fire from the engine upon touchdown isn't really unheard of.
To me it looked like it was in flames before it tipped over. Compare the flames at touchdown to those from a good landing. Toppling over does indicate a landing leg issue but the leg might have been a symptom rather than the cause.
I'm sure they will get launch clearance again soon. The last one only resulted in a flight ban of a few weeks.
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It scared a bunch of fish in a nearby protected sanctuary you Cretan!
This is why Starliner will continue (Score:2, Insightful)
Blue Origin is having trouble producing BE-4 engines, [wikipedia.org] which is messing with their launch system and th
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And space X can send a manned dragon capsule to the IIS anytime. In fact the current dragon has been delayed by NASA. Part of the issue is that the IIS does not have any place for another dragon to dock while the Boeing capsule is docked. Another is the planned manning for the IIS. And I suspect NASA money.
testing to failure point (Score:2)
23 landings? considering MOST rockets only get 1 landing per their lifetime, I'm a bit surprised the FAA is at all interested in one failing after the record-breaking 23rd landing. But I suppose Discovery did get 39 missions over its lifespan, which is quite impressive even by comparison here.
I'm sure space-x is interested to know what failed. This booster was basically ran till it failed. Pretty straight-forward way to find the weakest link?
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The FFA call for an investigation into any and all accidents that could cause harm to people
When the booster is flying over where people are then they care if it fails
I expect a fairly quick investigation by SpaceX, they will find the issue, make sure it won't reoccur and then carry on - as it should be
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23 landings? considering MOST rockets only get 1 landing per their lifetime,
To be fair, outside of Falcon and New Shepard, most rockets get ZERO (controlled) landings per lifetime.
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from the video, looks like one of the landing leg struts broke off the leg, and it folded on that side.
Such a difference in norms (Score:2)
Nothing new under the sun here. (Score:3)
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funny (Score:1)
...I haven't heard anything about an investigation into Boeing for their what, $4.6bn blunder involving I dangerously defective spacecraft? Is that coming?
The crew accepted the risks. (Score:2)
Starliner has not presented a danger to the general public. While I'm quite certain that Falcon will quickly be determined not to be a threat to public safety, that determination must be made before Falcon is permitted to fly again.
Incidentally, I suspect Elon Musk himself agrees. He may be thrilled to own used rockets, he may want to perform every mission exactly as scheduled, but he did just lose millions of dollars worth of hardware. I'll bet Mr. Musk et. al. are intensely interested in making sure
Thank goodness (Score:4, Funny)
Thank goodness for the FAA, because SpaceX would never have investigated this failure unless the FAA forced them to. Government bureaucracy at its finest....
What's with all the outrage? (Score:2)
I am pretty sure that if a landing gear broke on landing an airliner there would be a similar investigation and possible grounding order. No matter how many times that airliner model had landed before.
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