SpaceX has briefly grounded its Falcon 9 rocket after the car skilled a problem on the Crew-9 astronaut launch for NASA.
Crew-9 lifted off on Saturday (Sept. 28) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral House Drive Station, sending NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aloft aboard the Crew Dragon capsule “Freedom.”
Every little thing appeared to go nicely. The Falcon 9’s first stage aced its touchdown shortly after liftoff, and the rocket’s higher stage deployed Freedom into its correct orbit; the capsule is on observe to reach on the Worldwide House Station (ISS) on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 29) as deliberate.
After immediately’s profitable launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9’s second stage was disposed within the ocean as deliberate, however skilled an off-nominal deorbit burn. Consequently, the second stage safely landed within the ocean, however exterior of the focused space. We are going to resume launching after we…September 29, 2024
However the higher stage skilled a problem after finishing that job, SpaceX introduced early Sunday morning.
“After immediately’s profitable launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9’s second stage was disposed within the ocean as deliberate, however skilled an off-nominal deorbit burn. Consequently, the second stage safely landed within the ocean, however exterior of the focused space. We are going to resume launching after we higher perceive root trigger,” SpaceX wrote in a submit on X.
Associated: SpaceX Crew-9 astronaut mission: Reside updates
Certainly, a Falcon 9 had been scheduled to launch 20 broadband satellites for the corporate Eutelsat OneWeb from Vandenberg House Drive Base in California on Sunday evening, however that liftoff has been postponed.
The Crew-9 incident was the second Falcon 9 upper-stage problem to crop up in lower than three months. On July 11, the rocket skilled a leak of liquid oxygen in its higher stage throughout the launch of 20 of SpaceX’s Starlink web satellites. Consequently, the spacecraft had been deployed too low and ended up being misplaced.
SpaceX traced that anomaly to a cracked line for a strain sensor within the higher stage’s liquid-oxygen system. The Falcon 9 returned to flight after simply two weeks, acing a mission on July 27.
The rocket was grounded once more after a primary stage did not land efficiently throughout an Aug. 28 mission, which went nicely in any other case. This hiatus was even briefer: The Falcon 9 flew two profitable missions simply three days later, sticking the landings as nicely.
Crew-9 is sending Hague and Gorbunov to the ISS for a roughly five-month keep. The duo will return to Earth in February together with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who arrived on the orbiting lab in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
Starliner got here dwelling with out them earlier this month; the capsule had suffered thruster points in orbit, and NASA finally deemed a crewed return to Earth with the spacecraft too dangerous. So the company modified Crew-9’s manifest, taking two astronauts off the launch to make room for Wilmore and Williams on Freedom for the downward leg.