SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket experienced a rare inflight failure Thursday during its “Starlink Group 9-3” mission and is grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pending an investigation.
This mishap ends a streak of more than 300 successful Falcon 9 launches in nearly eight years.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the failure, citing it was due to a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (RUD) in orbit that happened after the self-landing booster disengaged. The rocket improperly deployed 20 Starlink satellites in a lower-than-intended orbit; those will likely burn up while entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The booster successfully returned to land.
The Falcon 9 has completed 69 launches so far this year, maintaining an impressive pace of one launch every two to three days. SpaceX hasn’t had a mid-flight explosion since 2015.
The setback disrupts the company’s rapid launch schedule, including the upcoming private crewed mission, Polaris Dawn, and a NASA mission, Crew-9, to the International Space Station (ISS).
The FAA demands that SpaceX conduct an investigation and receive a signoff from the federal agency before Falcon 9 can commence launching.