What precisely went mistaken final week stays a thriller. Nonetheless, consultants agree the occasion can’t be dismissed. “‘Oh, it was a fluke’ shouldn’t be, within the trendy house business, a suitable reply,” says McDowell. What he finds most stunning is that the malfunction didn’t happen in one of many reusable elements of the rocket (just like the booster), however as an alternative in a component generally known as the second stage, which SpaceX switches out every time the rocket launches.
Stalled schedules
It stays unclear when the Falcon 9 will fly once more. A number of upcoming missions will doubtless be postponed, together with the billionaire tech entrepreneur Jacob Isaacman’s Polaris Daybreak, which might have been the primary all-private mission to incorporate an area stroll. It’s potential NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS), deliberate for mid-August 2024, may also be delayed.
Uncrewed missions will probably be affected too. One which stands out is the Europa Clipper mission, which is meant to discover Jupiter’s icy moon and assess its habitability. Based on McDowell, the mission, which is deliberate for October 2024, will doubtless be delayed by the Falcon 9 grounding. That’s as a result of there’s a slim timeframe inside which the satellite tv for pc will be launched. (The mission is dealing with a technological hangup unrelated to the Falcon 9 that would additionally push again its launch.)
The incident reveals a necessity for the US to discover options to the Falcon 9. McDowell says the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, accompanied by Boeing’s Starliner capsule, was the subsequent best choice for US-based crewed ISS missions. However the Atlas V is being phased out. It is going to be changed by the ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, {a partially} reusable rocket that has made just one check flight thus far. Plus, the Starliner capsule has severe points which have left two NASA astronauts caught on the ISS, probably till August.
Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn rocket could possibly be a competitor, however it hasn’t flown but. The aerospace firm says it hopes to launch the rocket earlier than 2025. Blue Origin’s different reusable rocket, New Shepard, shouldn’t be able to flying into orbit.
The Falcon 9 malfunction makes these initiatives all of the extra important. “Even the Falcon 9 can have issues,” says McDowell. “It’s essential to have a number of routes of entry to house.”