FAA investigating SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket failure

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It's unclear when the Falcon 9 will be cleared to fly again.

view from the top of a rocket in space, looking down toward its firing engines and earth in the background
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 20 Starlink satellites toward low Earth orbit from California on July 11, 2024. The rocket's upper stage suffered an anomaly, causing the satellites to be deployed in an lower-than-intended orbit. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Update for 4:30 p.m. ET on July 12: SpaceX has announced that the July 11 Falcon 9 failure will lead to the loss of all 20 Starlink satellites. Read our failure story for more information.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is requiring an investigation into the recent anomaly suffered by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The issue occurred on Thursday night (July 11), during the launch of 20 Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Falcon 9's upper-stage engine failed to complete its second burn as planned, and the spacecraft were deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit as a result, according to SpaceX.

SpaceX is looking into the nature and cause of the anomaly, under the supervision of the FAA.

"The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX's final report, including any corrective actions," FAA officials wrote in an anomaly update.

"A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety," the agency added. "In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements."

Related: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket suffers failure during Starlink satellite launch (video)

SpaceX said via X early this morning (July 12) that it had made contact with five of the 20 Starlink satellites and was trying to get them to raise their orbits using their onboard ion thrusters. 

"Unlike a 'Star Trek' episode, this will probably not work, but it's worth a shot. The satellite thrusters need to raise orbit faster than atmospheric drag pulls them down or they burn up," company founder and CEO Elon Musk wrote on X in response to the SpaceX post.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on the deck of a ship at sea shortly after launching 20 Starlink satellites toward orbit from California on July 11, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)
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Falcon 9 anomalies are incredibly rare. The workhorse rocket has launched more than 350 times since its debut in June 2010, and it has experienced just one catastrophic in-flight failure — an explosion in June 2015 that resulted in the loss of a robotic Dragon cargo capsule headed for the International Space Station (ISS). 

(Thursday night's incident, though a failure, was not catastrophic, at least not in the same way; the satellites were deployed, and some of them might still make it to their intended orbit.)

The Falcon 9 is human-rated and has flown astronauts on 13 separate occasions. The rocket has two crewed launches coming up relatively soon — the private Polaris Dawn effort to low Earth orbit on July 31 and the Crew-9 mission to the ISS for NASA sometime next month.

Those target dates could slip as a result of Thursday night's anomaly, but the wait likely won't be too long, said billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who funded and will command Polaris Dawn and did the same for the pioneering Inspiration4 mission back in 2021.

"SpaceX has an incredible track record with Falcon 9. I can say from personal experience they are very transparent when issues arise. I have no doubt they will arrive at a cause quickly and ensure the most cost-effective and reliable launch vehicle keeps delivering payload to orbit. As for Polaris Dawn, we will fly whenever SpaceX is ready and with complete confidence in the rocket, spaceship and operations," Isaacman said in an X post today.

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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.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Unclear Engineer
    The failure was with the Merlin rocket motor on the upper, non-recoverable stage of the launch vehicle. That is the same rocket motor used in first stage, so I guess that is the issue the FAA is looking at.

    I think the Dragon service module uses the Draco rocket motors, not the Merlins.

    So, considering the number launches of the Falcon 9 rockets, with (9 + 1 =) 10 Merlin engines firing in each, what is the "failure rate" of a Merlin rocket motor? And, is that acceptable if it is a random problem rather than some sort of fabrication problem?
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    I see some stats showing 354 Falcon ( launches and 10 Falcon Heavy Launches. There was one previous in-flight failure in 2015. On a vehicle basis , that looks like a 0.55% failure rate. On a per rocket motor basis, that looks like a 0.04% failure rate.

    That still looks pretty good, compared to the competition. See https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230518-what-are-the-odds-of-a-successful-space-launch .

    That website says:
    ""Typically, first or second launch, you expect something like 30% of them to fail,"
    "Then things start to get better thereafter, by the time you're up to the 10th flight, you're probably looking at a less than 5% failure rate.
    "The launch failure rate (all time) for manned/human-carrying missions are lower at around 2%, and only around 1% involve a total failure to orbit,"
    "Failure also includes the rocket's payload not reaching the intended orbit or it being significantly damaged in launch, not just failing to achieve orbit. Look at launches in the 1950s, in those first stumbling leaps of the space race, and the failures rates are shockingly different – more than 70%. It only took until the early 1960s for this number to start falling and it has hovered around the same point ever since – around 7% (9% if satellite-related launch failures are included).
    "Proton's success rate and the European Ariane 4 and the American Delta II rocket, chalked up more than 100 successful launches in a row.
    The Russian Proton vehicle had a failure every 20 to 25 flights.

    So, perfection is not expected, and should not be required, although it should be the goal.

    When it is not the goal, you get Boeing's recent performance.
    Reply
  • vitiral
    Unclear Engineer said:
    I see some stats showing 354 Falcon ( launches and 10 Falcon Heavy Launches. There was one previous in-flight failure in 2015. On a vehicle basis , that looks like a 0.55% failure rate. On a per rocket motor basis, that looks like a 0.04% failure rate.

    That still looks pretty good, compared to the competition. See https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230518-what-are-the-odds-of-a-successful-space-launch .

    That website says:
    ""Typically, first or second launch, you expect something like 30% of them to fail,"
    "Then things start to get better thereafter, by the time you're up to the 10th flight, you're probably looking at a less than 5% failure rate.
    "The launch failure rate (all time) for manned/human-carrying missions are lower at around 2%, and only around 1% involve a total failure to orbit,"
    "Failure also includes the rocket's payload not reaching the intended orbit or it being significantly damaged in launch, not just failing to achieve orbit. Look at launches in the 1950s, in those first stumbling leaps of the space race, and the failures rates are shockingly different – more than 70%. It only took until the early 1960s for this number to start falling and it has hovered around the same point ever since – around 7% (9% if satellite-related launch failures are included).
    "Proton's success rate and the European Ariane 4 and the American Delta II rocket, chalked up more than 100 successful launches in a row.
    The Russian Proton vehicle had a failure every 20 to 25 flights.

    So, perfection is not expected, and should not be required, although it should be the goal.

    When it is not the goal, you get Boeing's recent performance.
    Regardless of previous track record, any failure requires an investigation in order to attempt to determine whether the issue is systemic or not. Maybe a small change in a manufacturing process or personnel is causing an increased failure rate in Merlin engines? All reasonable attempts should be made to identify and rectify such situations if possible before launching other vehicles.

    It's important to not rest on your laurels for something as high-stakes and high-precision as rocket engineering.
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    While it is true that it is important to investigate failures and determine causes, and then fix them, it is not clear that it always requires bureaucratic oversight, much less bureaucratic control.

    For instance, I don't think the FAA grounds all aircraft that use a particular jet engine when one airplane has a single engine failure in flight.

    I don't think the Dragon Capsule launches even use the same second stage as the StarLink launches. (But I may be wrong about that - can't find a good description for both.)

    Anyway, clearly the FAA did not ground all Boeing 737 Max aircraft after the first crash, and get that problem fixed, considering that they had a second crash for the same reason with the same aircraft type.

    The FAA just seems to be unusually hard to please when dealing with SpaceX.
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    Unclear Engineer said:
    The FAA just seems to be unusually hard to please when dealing with SpaceX.
    This isn't true. Ask any company that works with the FAA post-incident.

    I worked with them for several years, in a previous life, and found them to be quite professional. Fair, but firm. No favorites.
    Reply
  • Classical Motion
    It depends on what "work with" means. In my previous life I worked "with" several agencies.

    Some with was consulting and an affirmation of policy.

    And some with was for consulting and working under subject of policy.

    And for me the attitude of our agencies has changed a lot over the years.

    I sensed a built in bias. And tried to stay away from it later.

    But that was just my experience. And not part of a study.
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    Classical Motion said:
    It depends on what "work with" means. In my previous life I worked "with" several agencies.

    Some with was consulting and an affirmation of policy.

    And some with was for consulting and working under subject of policy.

    And for me the attitude of our agencies has changed a lot over the years.

    I sensed a built in bias. And tried to stay away from it later.

    But that was just my experience. And not part of a study.
    My former agency worked directly with FAA at multiple levels. Zero bias. Just how I saw it from my former positions.
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    I did not work for or with the FAA, but I did work for a Federal regulatory agency for a while, and it did have biases - which changed over the years.

    At this point in time, with the FAA and SpaceX and Boeing, I seem to see a bias towards Boeing and against SpaceX. For instance, Boeing's capsule is now at the ISS, with the same thruster problems it had during its previous flight, and NASA is doing experiments at White Sands to "understand" the problem(s?) while a planned 10 day mission frags towards 90 days.. On the other hand, SpaceX twice launched at SuperHeavy + StarShip which stayed within its approved flight envelope, but FAA declared it a "mishap" because not everything worked right the first time. And, the Boeing flight is crewed, while the SpaceX flight was not crewed and was not expected to work perfectly.

    So, from my perspective, SpaceX is doing what it should be doing to find and fix problems during a developmental launch sequence, while Boeing is supposed to be demonstrating that it has fixed its problems and can be "crew rated". So, which one is having unexpected problems and which one is getting more FAA limitations? Seems inconsistent to me.

    So, I am not saying that the Falcon 9 upper stage motor RUD is inconsequential, I am just saying that I doubt the FAA is needed to get that analyzed and resolved. Boeing, on the other hand, has just pled guilty to a felony in its aircraft business due to failure to comply with a safety culture deficiency upgrade agreement it reached to avoid prosecution for its 737 Max crashes. Do you really think that the safety culture is different in their rocket divisions?

    Speaking of biases, I note that Space.com has still not reported on the Boeing guilty verdict, but has reported on lawsuits by some of SpaceX's ex-employees alleging discrimination. That seems backwards for a publication supposedly focused on the science and engineering involved in space flight.
    Reply