SpaceX has put future Falcon 9 missions on hold after the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday didn’t land back to Earth as intended.
What Happened: The two-stage rocket successfully launched the Crew-9 mission into its proper orbit but while the second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, it landed in the ocean outside of the target area after it experienced an issue, SpaceX said.
“We will resume launching after we better understand root cause,” the company said in an X post on Sunday.
Previously Identified Issues: This is the third time in a few months that Falcon 9 has faced an issue. In late August, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the Falcon after a rocket booster that supported a Starlink mission failed to land upright on a droneship at sea and exploded upon returning to Earth. However, the FAA gave the green light for the company to resume launch operations two days later.
In July, however, SpaceX halted launch operations for two weeks after an issue was identified with a Falcon 9 rocket's second-stage engine. The issue was identified during a Starlink mission launch on July 11 and the company resumed launch operations on July 27 after completing an investigation and deploying necessary design changes.
Why It Matters: The Falcon 9 is SpaceX’s workhorse. In the first half of 2024, the company completed 67 missions using its Falcon vehicles. The Falcon 9 alone accounted for 66 launches in the half.
On Saturday, the rocket launched the Crew-9 mission from Florida with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard the Dragon spacecraft.
The Crew-9 mission is NASA's ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the ISS under its Commercial Crew Program. Hague and Gorbunov will return in February with Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore.
Williams and Wilmore went to the ISS in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and were supposed to return in about two weeks. However, owing to technical issues identified with the Boeing spacecraft, NASA decided to return the two astronauts aboard the crew-9 spacecraft months later. Starliner returned to Earth without the astronauts earlier this month.
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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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