SpaceX is seeking a quick return to Falcon 9 launches after a rare failure of its workhorse rocket during a satellite launch last week.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received a request from SpaceX on Monday (July 15) to continue the release Falcon 9 flights during the following mandatory accident investigation the ill-fated Starlink mission 9-3 in which the rocket’s upper stage experienced a liquid oxygen leak. SpaceX has asked the FAA to make a public safety determination, which would allow the company to resume launches if the administration determines the anomaly “does not involve safety-critical systems or otherwise endanger public safety.” SpaceflightNow reported reported on Tuesday (July 16). The FAA also provided Space.com with the statement, following a request.
“The FAA is responsible and committed to protecting the public during launch and reentry operations of commercial space transportation,” the agency wrote in an emailed statement. “The FAA is reviewing the request [by SpaceX] and will be driven by data and security at every step of the process.”
If approved, SpaceX could fulfill its plan to launch two human space flights in the coming weeks. Falcon 9 uses different rocket variants for manned and unmanned launches. The first astronaut launch, scheduled for July 31, is privately funded Polaris dawn mission (funded by American billionaire Jared Isaacman) that will include the first advertisement space walk in high Earth orbit. The second, expected in mid-August, is the launch of Crew-9 in International Space Station on behalf of NASA.
NASA is following up on the investigation into SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch failure and its potential impact on the agency’s future astronaut missions, the space agency said in a July 12 statement.
“Crew safety and mission safety are top priorities for NASA,” NASA officials wrote in the statement. “SpaceX has provided information and is engaging NASA in the company’s ongoing investigation of the anomalies to understand the issue and the way forward. NASA will provide updates on the agency’s missions, including potential impacts of the plan, if any, once it has more information.”
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which has launched 364 missions into space and suffered only two failures in 14 years, suffered a second-stage liquid oxygen fuel leak during its July 11 launch.
“After a planned upper-stage engine restart to raise perigee — or the lowest point of the orbit — [single] Merlin vacuum engine [on the second stage] experienced an anomaly and was unable to complete the second burn,” SpaceX wrote in one July 12 update.
“Although the scene survived and still decided the satellitesit did not successfully circle its orbit, but was decommissioned as is usually done at the end of each mission,” SpaceX added. “This left the satellites in an eccentric orbit with a very low perigee of 135 km. [84 miles]which is less than half the expected perigee height.”
In its July 16 statement, the FAA said the public safety determination request would be evaluated for issues including “safety-critical systems, the nature and consequences of the anomaly, the adequacy of existing flight safety analyses, the performance of the safety organization and environmental factors.”
“If the FAA agrees that no public safety issues are involved,” the statement added, “the operator may return to flight while the investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met.”
The FAA has not provided a timeline for evaluating the request, which is common practice in aerospace safety investigations due to the complex nature of spaceflight. Missions with humans on board, such as Polaris Dawn and NASA’s Crew-9, are likely to receive an additional level of scrutiny.
The vast majority of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets are for Starlink satellites, also created by SpaceX, to boost its satellite broadband internet business. But the rocket is also used for critical national security missions, as well as a selection of high-profile satellite launches used for Earth observation, for example.
The Falcon 9 also launches the most frequently of any rocket today, having sent 69 launches into space so far in 2024 (including one failure). China, the world’s second largest launch entity after SpaceX, has 30 successful launches this year so far.