Last week, the upper deck of a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket began accumulating significant amounts of ice before undergoing what CEO Elon Musk later called a “rapid, unplanned disassembly,” a tongue-in-cheek term for to an explosion in mid-flight.
This is the first failure of the Falcon nine since 2016, after a series of 344 consecutive successful launches.
And the 20 high-speed web satellites Starlink intended to put into orbit have since experienced their abrupt demise, as Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist and space tracker extraordinaire at Harvard, later confirmed.
And this, even if SpaceX is doing its best with satellites.
“The team contacted 10 of the satellites and tried to get them to raise their orbits with their ion thrusters, but they are in an incredibly high drag environment with their perigee, or the lowest point of their elliptical orbit, just 135 km above Earth. . ,” SpaceX wrote in a July 12 update. As such, satellites will re-enter Earth’s surroundings and disappear completely. “
“They pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety,” the company added.
McDowell showed over the weekend that several Starlink satellites had already re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, where they nearly burned up. The photographs showed familiar trails of light in the night sky.
This is an incredibly rare occasion given SpaceX’s unprecedented track record. In the last failed Falcon Nine launch, in 2016, an Israeli communications satellite was destroyed when the rocket exploded on the launch pad.
“We knew this journey had to come to an end at some point,” Tom Mueller, former SpaceX vice president of propulsion who was instrumental in developing the rocket, tweeted after the accident. last week, “but 344 consecutive flights isArray The team will solve the challenge and start the cycle again. “
For now, the Federal Aviation Administration has suspended all Falcon 9 rocket launches pending a joint investigation, which could force the company to delay its Polaris Dawn mission, in which billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman will attempt the first private history spacewalk. .
The project is tentatively scheduled for July 31; Given the latest news, delays are to be expected.
Read more about the flaw: All nine of SpaceX’s Falcon rockets landed after one exploded
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