SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had a rare anomaly while launching Starlink internet satellites on Thursday night (July 11). The launch was taking place at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Notably, the rocket’s upper stage was carrying 20 Starlink spacecraft to low Earth orbit. Everything was fine with the Falcon 9 initially. Two of its stages separated on time. The first stage started returning for a landing on a drone ship about eight minutes after liftoff.
However, according to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, a problem occurred with the rocket’s upper stage.
“Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown. Team is reviewing data tonight to understand root cause. Starlink satellites were deployed, but the perigee may be too low for them to raise orbit. Will know more in a few hours,” Musk said via X about two hours after liftoff.
Later, SpaceX detailed what had happened in another post.
“During tonight’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink, the second-stage engine did not complete its second burn. As a result, the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit. SpaceX has made contact with 5 of the satellites so far and is attempting to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters,” the company wrote.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage is powered by a single Merlin engine. A buildup of fluffy white ice could be seen near the engine as the rocket fired off in SpaceX’s launch webcast, Space.com reported. Such ice usually is an indication of a propellant leak.
About Falcon 9
The Falcon 9 has carried out several launches till now. In 2024 alone, 69 launches have already been undertaken by the powerful rocket. One full in-flight failure happened in 2015 during the launch of a robotic Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station (ISS).
It has also carried out crewed mission, launching 13 of them to date. Nince of them were for NASA and sent sent astronauts to the ISS.