A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded July 11 evening, roughly an hour after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The upper engine’s rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD) marked the company’s first accident in roughly eight years and ended a record-setting streak of nearly 300 successful missions that have transported cargo, satellites, and astronauts.
SpaceX intended Thursday night’s launch to deliver its latest batch of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. Although the 20 satellites deployed, they did so lower than planned and in the wrong orbit. According to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell on X, the payload likely released within an orbit that ranged from 86-to-183 miles above Earth instead of a circular, constant 183-mile altitude. SpaceX eventually established contact with at least 10 Starlink satellites, but even so, the company later confirmed they aren’t salvageable.
The first in-flight failure for SpaceX's Falcon rocket family since June 2015, a streak of 344 consecutive successful launches until tonight.
— Stephen Clark (@StephenClark1) July 12, 2024
A lot of unusual ice was observed on the Falcon 9's upper stage during its first burn tonight, some of it falling into the engine plume. https://t.co/1vc3P9EZjj pic.twitter.com/fHO73MYLms
“The team made contact… and attempted to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters, but they are in an enormously high-drag environment with their perigee, or lowest point of their elliptical orbit,” SpaceX posted on social media on Thursday evening before confirming the satellites will eventually re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and “fully demise.”
“They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety,” SpaceX officials added.
The explosion’s exact cause won’t be available until a full review of the accident, but as Ars Technica noted on July 12, a livecast of the launch depicted “an usual build-up of ice” around the Falcon 9’s Merlin Vacuum engine, or M-Vac. The engine uses a propellant composed of cryogenic liquid oxygen and kerosene, and although video appeared to show it successfully completing its first burn, the ice may have contributed to a later engine issue after SpaceX’s live stream ended.
[Related: SpaceX’s Starship may mess up the lunar surface.]
Even with the setback, Falcon 9’s current iteration, the Falcon 9 Block 5, undoubtedly remains the most successful and reliable rocket ever designed. With a total of 297 launches since Block 5’s 2018 debut, the reusable craft still has a 99.7 percent success rate.
Falcon 9’s last and sole other in-flight explosion occurred on June 28, 2015, when its upper stage’s liquid oxygen tank exploded just minutes after launch, destroying it and its uncrewed Dragon capsule cargo intended for the International Space Station. In that instance, Falcon 9 remained grounded for six months as SpaceX reviewed the accident.
It isn’t clear yet how long it may take before Falcon 9 rockets resume their missions. Apart from its semiregular Starlink satellite deliveries, billionaire Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission to complete the first commercial spacewalk is scheduled for later this month. In August, SpaceX also intended to ferry NASA’s Crew-9 team of four astronauts to the ISS.
“SpaceX has an incredible track record with Falcon9 [sic],” Isaacman posted to X on July 12. “… We will fly whenever SpaceX is ready and with complete confidence in the rocket, spaceship and operations.”
