SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket was grounded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday after a rocket broke apart in space, endangering its cargo of Starlink satellites. It was the first failure in more than seven years for a rocket relied on by the global space industry.
About an hour after Falcon 9 blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday night, the rocket’s second stage failed to restart. The 20 Starlink satellites were sent into a shallow orbit around Earth, where they reentered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up.
The attempt to reignite the engine “resulted in an engine RUD for reasons that are still unknown,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on his social media platform X early Friday morning, using the initials of the industry term Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, which normally means explosion.
