SpaceX Pausing Launches to Study Falcon 9 Issue on Crew-9 Astronaut Mission

"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.

Re:

[saloomy]

Lives lost:
- NASA 14 (Challenger / Columbia)
- SpaceX 0
Pretty high success rate for SpaceX.

Re: They plus or minus on NASA success percentage

[saloomy]

Well said.

SpaceX, you're being too picky

[93 Escort Wagon]

Just go with the Chinese approach. Launch your rockets and cross your fingers that none of the rocket parts lands on a city!

Re:

[jfdavis668]

At least SpaceX can land them. So if they accidentally launch one during testing, it can just land to be retested.

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

"Just go with the Boeing approach". FTFY

Automation is the answer

[backslashdot]

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.

Re:

[saloomy]

Many of the components are automatically built, because the precision requirements are far too stringent for hand-made. Often times, these anomalies come from conditions like excessive heating of the fuel because the weather was too warm during accent, or a sensor failed to read an anomalous condition happening too far away.

Sometimes it is manufacturing defect, but rarely. Space is hard