FAA grounds SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket after booster malfunction in Pacific Ocean

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has grounded SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket after a malfunction during its return to Earth on Saturday. The issue occurred following a successful NASA mission that sent two astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9’s second stage failed to properly execute its deorbit burn, causing the booster to land outside the designated safety zone in the Pacific Ocean. No injuries or property damage were reported.

This is the third grounding of a SpaceX rocket in the past three months. Previous incidents included a Starlink mission failure in July and a landing issue in August.

SpaceX has stated that it will resume flights once the root cause of the current malfunction is identified, working closely with the FAA.

The grounding highlights ongoing tensions between SpaceX and the FAA over launch regulations and fines. However, this incident does not affect SpaceX’s testing of its next-generation Starship rocket system, which is awaiting FAA approval for its fifth flight test.