Today's Edition
FLORIDA (WAM)
SpaceX’s primary Falcon 9 rocket was grounded for the second time this year by federal regulators, after one of the company’s vehicles failed to land properly following a routine satellite launch.
Bloomberg quoted the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as saying on Wednesday in a statement that it is requiring an investigation into the incident.
“The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a drone ship at sea,” the FAA said. “No public injuries or public property damage have been reported.”
The rare landing failure occurred early Wednesday morning, after SpaceX successfully launched another batch of 21 Starlink internet satellites into orbit from Florida. While the satellites were deployed just fine, the Falcon 9 booster appeared to catch fire and tip over when it attempted to land on one of SpaceX’s drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean, according to footage from a SpaceX livestream of the launch.
It was the first failed rocket landing attempt in more than three years for SpaceX. The company said that this particular booster was performing its 23rd launch.
The new investigation comes a little more than a month after the FAA grounded SpaceX’s Falcon 9, one of the most world’s most frequently launched rockets, after a failure occurred midflight on July 11. The FAA ultimately cleared the rocket to return to flight just two weeks later after SpaceX quickly determined the root of the failure.
