SpaceX
Early Wednesday morning at 3:48 a.m. ET, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off for its 23rd launch from Space Launch Complex-40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The mission successfully delivered 21 Starlink satellites, including 13 of the larger vehicles with direct-to-cell capabilities, before attempting a landing on the A lack of seriousnessHowever, the experienced booster lacked stability and tipped over shortly after touchdown.
Before Wednesday's landing mishap, SpaceX had landed 267 boosters in a row. The company's last mishap occurred in February 2021. The cause of the mishap was not immediately clear, and SpaceX said “teams are evaluating flight data and booster status.” Based on video of the landing, it's possible there was an issue with the engine's ignition timing.
Fleet Leader
This special first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket made its debut in November 2020, launching the GPS III-04 mission for the U.S. Space Force. With its 23rd launch on Wednesday morning, Booster 1062 briefly became the fleet leader of SpaceX's first stages, which perform most of the company's launches.
Landing boosters is considered a secondary goal compared to a launch's primary mission of delivering payloads into orbit. However, in recent years, SpaceX has postponed launches due to poor weather conditions because the company does not want to lose first-stage hardware, which likely costs at least $20-30 million to manufacture, test and deliver to the launch site.
The landing failure had an immediate consequence for the company's launch slate. A second Starlink launch scheduled for Wednesday morning from the other side of the country, from Vandenberg Space Force Base, was canceled so SpaceX could determine the cause of the landing problem during the Florida launch.
Impact on Polaris Dawn
It is unclear whether the landing problem will affect the much-publicized launch of the Falcon 9 rocket of the Polaris Dawn mission, which will take Jared Isaacman and three other pilots and engineers on an adventurous mission to orbit more than 1,200 km above Earth before conducting the first private spacewalk.
A launch of that mission scheduled for Tuesday morning was canceled after a helium leak was discovered in the ground systems supporting the rocket. A second launch attempt of the vehicle early Wednesday was canceled several hours before liftoff due to weather problems. Meteorologists are concerned about sea conditions for the Crew Dragon vehicle's landing three to five days after liftoff, when the spacecraft will return to Earth in the seas near Florida.
“Our launch criteria are severely limited by the forecasted splashdown weather conditions,” Isaacman wrote on X on Tuesday evening. “With no rendezvous with the ISS and limited life support consumables, we need to be absolutely certain of the reentry weather before launch. At this point, conditions are not favorable either tonight or tomorrow, so we will reassess the situation day by day.”
The earliest launch date for the Polaris Dawn mission is currently Friday morning at 3:38 a.m. ET (07:38 UTC) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but that depends on both the weather and the fact that SpaceX is now familiar with the landing glitch from Wednesday morning's Starlink launch.