Approximately an hour after Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday night, the rocket’s second stage failed to reignite, resulting in the deployment of its 20 Starlink satellites on a shallow orbital path. These satellites are expected to reenter and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere soon.
The attempt to reignite the engine led to an “engine RUD for reasons currently unknown,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote early Friday on his social media platform, X. This marks the first failure of a rocket widely relied upon by the global space industry.
Musk mentioned that SpaceX is updating the software of the Starlink satellites to force their on-board thrusters to fire harder than usual to prevent a fiery re-entry.
The Falcon 9 will remain grounded until SpaceX investigates the cause of the failure, rectifies the issue, and receives approval from the FAA, the agency stated. This process could take several weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the failure and SpaceX’s plan for remediation.
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