SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, a key player in satellite launches and astronaut missions, faced a significant failure on Thursday night, leading to its grounding by federal regulators. The mishap, involving a batch of Starlink internet satellites, marked the Falcon 9’s first in-flight failure in nearly a decade.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation, with SpaceX’s operations potentially facing delays across various programmes, including NASA’s astronaut launches and the global satellite industry. The failure stemmed from a liquid oxygen leak in the rocket’s second stage, resulting in the satellites being deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit, with many likely to reenter the atmosphere prematurely.
