SpaceX Pausing Launches to Study Falcon 9 Issue on Crew-9 Astronaut Mission (space.com) 10
"SpaceX has temporarily grounded its Falcon 9 rocket," reports Space.com, "after the vehicle experienced an issue on the Crew-9 astronaut launch for NASA."
Crew-9 lifted off on Saturday (Sept. 28) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aloft aboard the Crew Dragon capsule "Freedom" [for a 5-month stay, returning in February with Starliner's two astronauts]. Everything appeared to go well. The Falcon 9's first stage aced its landing shortly after liftoff, and the rocket's upper stage deployed Freedom into its proper orbit; the capsule is on track to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 29) as planned. But the upper stage experienced an issue after completing that job, SpaceX announced early Sunday morning.
"After today's successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9's second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn. As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area. We will resume launching after we better understand root cause," SpaceX wrote in a post on X.
Indeed, a Falcon 9 had been scheduled to launch 20 broadband satellites for the company Eutelsat OneWeb from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday night, but that liftoff has been postponed.
"After today's successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9's second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn. As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area. We will resume launching after we better understand root cause," SpaceX wrote in a post on X.
Indeed, a Falcon 9 had been scheduled to launch 20 broadband satellites for the company Eutelsat OneWeb from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday night, but that liftoff has been postponed.
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- NASA 14 (Challenger / Columbia)
- SpaceX 0
Pretty high success rate for SpaceX.
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You should probably also count Apollo 1 there.
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Just wondering where the privates stand compared to NASA on the failure percentages with this tally in a different column.
Let me put it that way. There's no way I'd sit on a rocket riding to space even if you paid me to do it, I hate even flying normal airplanes, but if someone forced me to, I'd sooner go to space three times over on a Falcon 9 than once on anything else, SLS included.
Re: They plus or minus on NASA success percentage (Score:1)
Re: They plus or minus on NASA success percentage (Score:2)
STS: 135 flights, 2 catastrophic failures.
Falcon 9 block 5: 322 flights, 1 catastrophic failure.
Falcon 9 has definitely had a few issues of late, though.
SpaceX, you're being too picky (Score:2)
Just go with the Chinese approach. Launch your rockets and cross your fingers that none of the rocket parts lands on a city!
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Automation is the answer (Score:1)
Too many variables when humans build things, it's stupid to risk safety. Automate the production, QA, and everything else but have a redundant human inspection at the end. Spread the profits to unemployed aerospace technicians.
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Sometimes it is manufacturing defect, but rarely. Space is hard