SpaceX’s Falcon 9 remains grounded after a failed landing attempt By Reuters

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was grounded after it failed an attempt to land back on Earth during a routine Starlink mission, forcing the company’s second grounding in this year.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 successfully launched a batch of Starlink Internet satellites into orbit early Wednesday morning from Florida. The rocket’s reusable first-stage booster returned to Earth and attempted to land on a sea barge as usual, but flipped into the ocean after a fiery touchdown, a live stream from SpaceX showed.

“The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a drone at sea. No public injuries or damage to public property were reported. The FAA is requesting an investigation,” an FAA spokesperson said.

Landings of the Falcon 9, a rocket that much of the Western world relies on to put satellites and people into space, are rare. The rocket was last grounded in July for the first time since 2016, following a second stage failure in space that doomed a batch of Starlink satellites.

While no satellites or people were threatened during Wednesday’s flight, the failed landing indicated something went wrong with the rocket, which the FAA tends to believe could pose a greater risk on future missions if not thoroughly investigated .

The rocket grounding could delay the launch of the high-profile Polaris (NYSE: ) Dawn mission with four private astronauts poised to attempt the first private spacewalk. The Polaris mission was expected to launch this week, but was delayed by a launch pad coupling and then again by bad weather.

After the July grounding, SpaceX returned the Falcon 9 to flight 15 days later after the FAA granted the company’s request for an expedited return to flight.

The Falcon 9 is also set to launch two NASA astronauts at the end of September on a Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will bring home next year the two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station after riding the spacecraft’s turbulence Boeing’s (NYSE: ) Starliner.

NASA regulates the Falcon 9 for its own missions. It was not immediately clear how the latest rocket grounding would affect that NASA mission. The US space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SpaceX has built a sizeable fleet of reusable Falcon boosters since the rocket’s first launch in 2010, which has allowed the company to far outpace its rivals in launch frequency. The individual booster that failed on Wednesday was on its 23rd flight, SpaceX wrote on X.

“After a successful ascent, Falcon 9’s first booster stage flipped over after landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone,” SpaceX said, referring to the large ship the booster was supposed to land on.

Another Starlink mission was set to launch shortly after Wednesday’s flight from SpaceX’s other launch site in Southern California, but the company canceled that mission after the landing failed.

The FAA regulates private rocket and launch site safety to the extent it affects the safety of the uninvolved public. The agency on Wednesday asked SpaceX to open an investigation that the FAA will oversee.

“The return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety,” the FAA said.