SpaceX has postponed its next launch of Starlink Internet satellites from Wednesday after a Falcon 9 booster missed a landing attempt on a foreign drone during an otherwise successful mission Monday night.
The company aimed to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday at 12:55 EST (0555 GMT) from Route 39A with about 60 Starlink satellites, but SpaceX on Tuesday provided a hold on preparations for the launch when the Falcon 9 is expected to roll out. beach launch complex at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A new launch date for the launch of Falcon 9, which has been delayed due to technical issues since late January, was not immediately available.
Another Falcon 9 rocket took off at 22:59 EST Monday (0359 GMT Tuesday) from nearby Road 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and successfully delivered its 60 Starlink payloads into orbit. But the first phase booster crashed at sea, missing SpaceX’s rocket landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
Something seems to have gone wrong with the step-up combustion of the booster, which helps guide the rocket to the landing site and slow it down for its final descent. A live video input from a camera on board showed the rocket burning a fiery plume behind the end of the entrance, moments before telemetry data was cut off from the vehicle. A camera from SpaceX’s drone showed an orange glow in the sky when the rocket fell into the Atlantic Ocean.
The booster on Monday’s mission – B1059 – was on its sixth voyage into space. According to SpaceX, the latest version of the Falcon 9 booster can make ten flights with only inspections and minor overhauls between missions, and it can fly after a major overhaul at additional launches.
SpaceX’s most used Falcon 9 booster has flown eight times.
The repair and reuse of the first phases of Falcon 9 is unmatched in the launch industry. No other commercial launch company has landed and reused boosts on class missions. With the launch of Monday night, SpaceX Falcon booster cores have recovered 74 times since 2015, including 24 successful landings since the last time the company lost a first phase in March 2020.
It was widely expected that the loss of a rocket phase would lead to an investigation at SpaceX, with possible consequences for the company’s launch schedule in the short term. An analysis of the failed rocket landing may have caused the delayed launch of the Falcon 9 mission waiting to take off on Route 39A.
SpaceX has six Falcon 9 boosters left in its inventory. Three of them are earmarked for future missions for NASA and the US space force: SpaceX’s next crew will launch to the International Space Station in April, starting with a GPS satellite and NASA asteroid probe in July.
SpaceX is still building Falcon cores, including boosters for the next three-time Falcon Heavy launch later this year, but no one is about to reach the launch platform.
Although the once-experimental rocket landings are a secondary objective for each mission, the successful recovery of Falcon boosters is more important than ever for SpaceX’s ability to maintain the launch pace at a high rate, especially for flights at the Starlink Internet Network added.
The launch Monday night was SpaceX’s third in less than a month dedicated to the $ 1 million Starlink program, and officials have scheduled two more Starlink missions before the end of February: one on February 17 – which is now being delayed indefinitely – and one from road 40 on According to the airspace and maritime warning notices on 25 February.
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