SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which has been used many times before, can’t fly right now.
This morning, it launched 21 Starlink satellites into space, which was its 23rd trip for this particular rocket part. But when it tried to land back on a boat in the ocean, it fell over.
The FAA, which is like the traffic police for the sky, said they need to check what went wrong with the landing before SpaceX can use the Falcon 9 again. So, the rocket has to stay grounded until they figure it out.
SpaceX will conduct the investigation, but the FAA will oversee the work and assess its findings.
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“A return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety,” FAA officials said in an emailed statement.
“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,” they added.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is on pause right now because of a problem when it tried to land after launching some satellites today.
This isn’t as big a deal as when something went wrong with the rocket in space last month, which made them lose some satellites. This time, the satellites made it to space just fine, but the rocket part that came back to Earth didn’t land properly.
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Even though this hiccup might seem small, it could delay a big event SpaceX had planned. They were going to send up Polaris Dawn, a mission where four people would go into space for five days, including doing a spacewalk that’s never been done by private folks before.
They wanted to launch this mission today but had to cancel because of bad weather. They’ve also said no to trying again tomorrow but haven’t picked a new launch day yet. So, we’re waiting to see how long it’ll take to fix the rocket’s landing issue before they can try again with Polaris Dawn.
