Falcon 9 grounded for the second time in 2024

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has suffered its second anomaly of 2024. In response to this, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has grounded the vehicle and is requiring a mishap investigation.

This anomaly occurred during the booster landing of the Starlink Group 8-6 mission, with the satellites successfully deployed from the second-stage. During the landing, booster B1062 appeared to come down toward the drone ship too fast, causing at least one of its legs to fail. The failed leg resulted in the booster tipping over and being lost.

The immediate effects on SpaceX's launch schedule may have the Polaris Dawn mission delayed into next week, which has so far been delayed twice due to helium leaks. NASA's Crew-9 mission, which is targeting late September for launch, may also be effected depending on how long it takes to complete the mishap investigation. Crew-9 is also set to bring back the crew of Starliner after NASA ruled it too risky to return with crew.

It's unknown when Falcon 9 may return to flight. Based on the previous anomaly this year, it is likely that SpaceX will be flying again in a little over a week.

As mentioned before, this was the second time Falcon 9 has been grounded this year. The previous anomaly occurred on July 12th, with a return to flight on July 27th.

The booster that was lost due to this anomaly, B1062, was flying for the twenty-third time. B1062 had supported the launches of GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, OneWeb Launch 17, ARABSAT BADR-8, and sixteen Starlink missions.

Still on track?

SpaceX is still believed to be aiming to complete 148 launches of Falcon 9 in 2024. In 2023, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launched a combined total of 96 times. Currently, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have performed 83 launches this year.

For SpaceX to reach 148 Falcon-series launches, a Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy would have to launch every 1.9 days. Current estimates place Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy completing around 127 launches for 2024.