SpaceX Falcon 9 grounded again after second stage hits wrong part of ocean

Otherwise, Crew-9 launch was a complete success

Updated SpaceX has grounded the Falcon 9 once more, following the launch of the Crew-9 mission, due to an issue with the second stage deorbit burn.

Despite the successful blast off of the Crew Dragon and subsequent touch down of the Falcon 9 first-stage booster, the second stage did not perform as expected.

The plan was to dispose of the second stage in the ocean, which went largely to order, although it landed in a different part of the ocean than intended.

Elon Musk's rocketeers attributed this to "an off-nominal deorbit burn," saying: "We will resume launching after we better understand root cause."

It creates a predicament since SpaceX has several Falcon 9 launches coming up. For example, ESA's Hera mission has a launch window that opens on October 7 and closes on October 27. The expedition is to conduct a detailed post-impact survey of the asteroid Dimorphos after NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully collided with it in September 2022.

SpaceX has not commented on where the second stage ended up; just that it was outside the targeted area. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell reckoned that a slight underburn during the deorbit firing was the most likely scenario.

The grounding was SpaceX's decision after the anomaly was observed. The Register has asked the US Federal Aviation Administration to comment, and will update should the agency respond.

This is the third grounding of the Falcon 9 fleet in as many months. A second-stage malfunction led to the loss of 20 Starlink satellites in July. The rocket was briefly grounded again in August following a landing failure. Now another second-stage issue has resulted in a deorbit burn that sent debris to the wrong part of the ocean.

However, with more than 20 launches notched up since July's incident, the Falcon 9 remains a consistently reliable workhorse. Apart from an isolated landing problem, the first-stage booster has continued to perform impressively.

What makes the situation worse is that the Crew-9 mission launch was otherwise a complete success, and the Crew Dragon capsule, with only a crew of two onboard to make space for the Boeing Starliner crew, successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on September 29, a day after launch. Crew-9 was also the first human spaceflight mission to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. ®

Updated to add at 2100 UTC

The FAA has told us it was aware of SpaceX's slip-up, and wants a probe into the error.

A spokesperson said: “The incident involved the Falcon 9 second stage landing outside of the designated hazard area. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported.

“The FAA is requiring an investigation.”