FAA suspends all SpaceX flights
August 29, 2024
By Chris Forrester
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating a problem suffered by a SpaceX booster which upon landing on the ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ floating recovery vessel on August 28th collapsed and exploded. The FAA has mounted a “mishap” because of the “permanent loss of vehicle”.
The Falcon 9 rocket had successfully placed a cargo of 21 satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral. However, as is normal for SpaceX, the large booster, reference number 1062 and having completed its 23 successive flight, one of the booster’s legs gave way. A close examination of the landing seems to show a leg piston separating into two pieces.
One observer suggests the landing was perhaps around 8 kph ‘faster’ than usual and a harder landing than usual. It was the first Falcon 9 landing problem since February 2021 although a booster fell off the landing barge during rough seas in December 2023.
SpaceX confirmed that it is standing down from a launch attempt at Vandenberg Space Force Base following the landing failure of booster B1062 this morning. They said this is in order “to give the team time to review booster landing data from the previous launch.”
The FAA in a statement said a return to flight by SpaceX would happen once it had completed its investigation.
The bottom half of the rocket’s booster was subsequently safely aboard the landing vessel and will return to port for investigation and the potential recovery of the booster’s valuable engines. Most experts suggest the investigation will suspend flights for around two weeks.
The suspension will affect launches planned for the Polaris Dawn project as well as launches for OneWeb and ASTSpaceMobile.
Elon Musk, in a Tweet on X following the event said: “Now we figure out what went wrong to drive the landing failure rate far above 1 in a thousand, then 1 in 10 thousand … 1 in a million, etc.”