SpaceX loses Falcon 9 rocket during landing in Starlink satellite mission

After successfully sending another group Starlink Broadband Satellites in orbit Monday night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, SpaceX appears to have missed the landing of its Falcon 9 first-phase booster for the first time in a year. On the live stream of the mission, a flash can be seen just on the side of the drone at the moment that the booster must land, although no rocket ever enters the frame.

SpaceX has not yet confirmed the fate of the Falcon 9, but it looks very likely that it crashed into the sea. In the process, it apparently spared three seagulls hanging from the landing strip and may never understand how close they get to being roasted.

The Falcon 9 itself had a decent life and successfully completed six launches, but only five landings in its career.

The apparent landing with hard water comes almost exactly a year after the same thing happened at the end of a year former Starlink mission on February 17, 2020. Every landing attempt in between was successful (for Falcon 9, that is. Definitely not counting Testing starship in Texas).

SpaceX planned to embark on its next Starlink mission a little over 24 hours later. But as of Tuesday afternoon, temporary flight restrictions have been lifted for the launch. It therefore appears that there will be no follow-up launch on Tuesday evening and that the flight of the 20th group of satellites currently needs to be determined.

The company has plans to introduce two groups of Starlinks from Florida within hours of each other earlier this month, but one of the missions was postponed. (This is the same launch that has now been postponed again.)

These launches and the landings that follow have become quite routine for SpaceX this week, despite this accident, but Musk would like to see the pace of launch increase. The FCC permit for To operate Starlink, at least 2,220 of its satellites must be in use by March next year.

So far, more than 1,000 of the small satellites have been sent into space, but it is not clear how many of them are currently in use. Either way, it would seem that SpaceX can get at least two Starlink launches a month, it should be able to achieve its goal.

Only three Starlink missions have been flown so far in 2021, but the company could quickly get underway with the next launch.

When the next launch is imminent, we’ll include the live stream here. It is usually launched about ten minutes before launch.

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