FAA requires investigation of anomaly on SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut launch

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"The incident involved the Falcon 9 second stage landing outside of the designated hazard area."

a black and white rocket launches into a cloudy blue sky
A Falcon 9 rocket launches SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut mission to the International Space Station on Sept. 28, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is requiring an investigation of the anomaly a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket experienced during the Crew-9 astronaut launch on Sept. 28.

That liftoff successfully sent a Crew Dragon capsule carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov toward the International Space Station. However, the Falcon 9's upper stage suffered an issue after deploying the capsule, SpaceX revealed on Sept. 29. The issue was an "off-nominal deorbit burn," which resulted in the upper stage landing in the ocean outside of its target disposal area. (The Falcon 9's first stage is reusable, but its upper stage is not.)

SpaceX is pausing launches while it looks into the issue. The company's investigation will be overseen by the FAA, which said the inquiry is not optional.

Related: SpaceX Crew-9 astronaut mission: Live updates

"The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX NASA Crew-9 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on September 28. The incident involved the Falcon 9 second stage landing outside of the designated hazard area. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation," agency officials wrote in an update. 

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The Crew-9 anomaly was the third Falcon 9 issue that SpaceX has experienced in less than three months. On July 11, the rocket's upper stage sprang a liquid-oxygen leak that resulted in the loss of 20 of the company's Starlink internet satellites.

That incident grounded the Falcon 9 for two weeks. Then, on Aug. 28, a Falcon 9 first stage failed its landing attempt after a successful Starlink launch (which was the record-setting 23rd liftoff for that particular booster). SpaceX stood down for just a few days after the mishap, returning to flight on Aug. 31. 

It's unclear how long the current hiatus will last, or how it will affect SpaceX's always-busy launch manifest. The company has some very high-profile liftoffs planned for this month, including that of NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which is scheduled to launch toward the icy Jupiter ocean moon Europa atop a Falcon Heavy rocket during a 21-day window that opens on Oct. 10. The Falcon Heavy and the Falcon 9 use the same upper stage.

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Unclear Engineer
    This article does not make it clear, but other sources are reporting this as FAA "grounding" the Falcon 9 until it is satisfied with its investigation.

    As I posted before, this is probably the one of the last 3 Falcon 9 problems that can actually be stretched into a "public safety issue", but it is quite a stretch.

    Compared to letting the Boeing 737 continuing to fly with at least 3 rudder jamming problems during landings due to "defective parts" and many planes apparently still having those parts, this seems like a lot of "stretch" on SpaceX and an incredible amount of "shrinkage" for Boeing. There is clearly far more at public risk from Boeing landing jets packed with passengers and flying over dense population areas with rudders that may not keep the plane lined up with the runway than for a space vehicle with nobody aboard to even crash without any control at all somewhere random on the planet - something that China does routinely.
    Reply
  • Meteoric Marmot
    The FAA is unlikely to cut SpaceX any slack as long as Musk is slagging them at every opportunity. To do so would imply that his rants are having the effect Musk wants.
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    I agree that Musk is not being smart about how to handle the FAA as an inter-personal relationship. But, with Asperger's Syndrome, that is not his strong suit, anyway. And, maybe being smart did not work for him with FAA in the past - their actions seemed unnecessarily restrictive before he became so blunt. Being blunt about it may have more effect, especially considering the contrast with other regulated entities and the national importance of the success of SpaceX in the launch and space technology development business.

    Whatever, at this point, it is hard to show that FAA has a real reason to declare mishaps and lack of authorizations that don't show bias on the part of the agency. That really needs to be corrected, even just for the sake of public opinion about the FAA. Their current administrator did not really justify a "public safety" need for several of their earlier actions, and did demonstrate an inability to approve changes in a timely manner. Remember, they did eventually approve the things they are now fining Space X for doing before the agency got its act together to issue the approvals fast enough to not disrupt the launch schedules.

    Many space launches have deadlines that are set by physical realities of celestial body motions or lifetimes of equipment that has already been activated. Having the FAA take every opportunity to disrupt the SpaceX launch schedules for arbitrary time periods is definitely impinging on a lot of goals that are important to space exploration and our national leadership in that field.
    Reply
  • Brad
    But but but I'm Elon......you can't tell me what to do. Doesn't the FAA realize that I have to continue to launch my sky polluting StarLink's? I mean there are disadvantaged people in remote locations all over the planet just dying for access to Pornhub and Facebook? Come on FAA get out of the way. Elon will be the guy to make dying in space normal.
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    Lets keep the hyperbole to a slow simmer, please. Thank you.
    Reply
  • Brad
    I did
    Reply
  • Penfold
    Whilst I do realise that it may seem that SpaceX is being penalised more compared to other space companies.

    But if they can't control the area the second stage comes down in carefully enough, it's a potential danger to shipping and possibly more if it hits land.

    As to the person commenting on the Chinese. Their attitude to safety is appalling. But doesn't make it right to let SpaceX off the hook.
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    The point is not whether SpaceX should take steps to correct the issue. Everybody involved, including SpaceX, agree that they should and will and are doing so.

    The point is whether it is appropriate for the FAA to prohibit SpaceX from flying any more of its Falcon 9 rockets until not only SpaceX, but the FAA, at its own slow pace, decides that SpaceX has done enough.

    And, that real point should be decided on the basis of the amount of risk to the public that is saved by FAA prohibiting any more flights for some period of time. That is similar to something that I did professionally for a different agency, so I have some understanding of both the concept and the technical and legal processes involved. Without having to do any detailed calculations, it is clear that the FAA is greatly over reacting to the actual level of public safety risk from the various SpaceX problems, compared to their usual actions on other problems that obviously create far more risk to the public. There is no defense for the FAA except to say that they don't base their decisions on the actual level of risk to the public. Otherwise, they would be admitting bias rather than bureaucratic intransigence to their own interpretations of their own regulations.

    So, the criticism is that things like not meeting all of the test objectives for StarShip test flights 2 and 3 while still meeting all of the safety requirements should not have resulted in the FAA grabbing control of the SpaceX launch schedule. And, the FAA eventually agreed to that with their license for the 4th flight test, so that others of exactly the same flight plan would be allowed without further approvals or declarations of "mishaps" for failure to meet a particular development goal. (But SpaceX has now progressed to more complex flight plans, so those prior approvals are not applicable to the fifth flight test.)

    This issue with the Falcon 9 upper stage is different, in that it is not a development project - the upper stage is part of an ongoing commercial operation, and each is used only once. So defects that cause deviations beyond approved flight parameters, like the splashdown area, are properly within the FAA's jurisdiction.

    But, there is still the issue of what the FAA needs to do about it. Grounding all Falcon 9 launches does not seem necessary, given the very small risk to the public that is involved with the type and amount of failure that occurred. The FAA has not grounded the Boeing 737s until their rudder jamming problem is resolved to the FAA's satisfaction, and that obviously involves far greater risk to the public than having a Falcon 9 upper stage land outside the approved splashdown area somewhere in the ocean.

    So, it makes some sense to prohibit launches of the Dragon capsule with astronauts in it, because failure of the second stage might make it necessary to reenter without getting to the International Space Station and put the capsule landing site into some sort of dangerous conditions. It makes sense to prohibit Falcon 9 launches that put the approved splashdown area close enough to occupied parts of Earth that a similar amount of "miss" would put those areas in the potential splashdown area.

    But, if SpaceX wants to risk 30 StarLink satellites on a Falcon 9 launch and drop the second stage in the South Pacific, the likelihood of hurting a member of the public if that went wrong is extremely low. Much lower that many other things that the FAA could legally prohibit but chooses not to.

    So, the criticism is about how the FAA chooses to limit SpaceX to a degree that is inconsistent with what it chooses to do with other problems involving other companies, when viewed through the perspective of the reason for the FAA being granted power by Congress to protect the public.
    Reply
  • George²
    SpaceX is more dangerous than other space launcher companies even when it's flight security is better. Just because make much more launches..
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    George² said:
    SpaceX is more dangerous than other space launcher companies even when it's flight security is better. Just because make much more launches..
    That is not a proper definition of "more dangerous".

    Would you think that GM cars are "more dangerous" than Teslas simply because there are more of them?

    Are China's flights with random re-entries of larger rockets "less dangerous" than SpaceX flights because there are fewer of them?

    There needs to be a risk-to-benefit comparison to decide if the risk is worth it. More launches mean more benefit as well as more risk.

    When used as a regulatory decision tool, there is usually some standard set for when the risk is too high and regulatory action is needed. The type and amount of regulatory action can be adjusted in steps for different levels of risk - with standards for the step changes.

    We can't just stop everything to minimize risk. There are too many interconnected sources of risk, so we need to make smart trade-offs. For instance, we can't reduce the risk of agriculture to zero by not doing any farming, because we would then create (an extremely high) risk of people starving to death.
    Reply