SpaceX Has a Falcon 9 Fail

For the first time in a long time, SpaceX had an upper stage anomaly on last night's Starlink launch from Vandenberg SFB in California. Ars Technica reports that was the first Falcon 9 launch failure after 344 successful launches. It's probably important to note this was not the booster, the reused portion of the Falcon 9, but rather the upper stage, which flies once and then is directed to reenter where it will splash into the ocean.

If you've watched the videos on any of these missions, you know the typical progression is they burn the first stage, drop that and ignite the second stage for a relatively short period and then shut it down for a half hour to an hour. Then they relight the second stage to finalize the orbit for the satellites by raising the lowest point in the orbit, the perigee. That's the point where the second stage engine self-destructed; a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly or RUD.  The first stage landed successfully, which we've come to expect.

There are reports that observers felt they were seeing too much ice on the vacuum Merlin engine, typically called an M-Vac, during the first burn and that more ice than typical was falling off the engine. Some of that is evident in this photo:

Numerous pieces of ice fell off the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket during its climb into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Image credit: SpaceX.

The FAA has declared that they are "requiring an investigation" and would work with SpaceX on corrective actions. 

“The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 9-3 mission that launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 11. The incident involved the failure of the upper stage rocket while it was in space. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.

An investigation is designed to further enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective actions to avoid it from happening again.

The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions.

A return flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. 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.”

Chances are the loss of the 20 Starlink satellites - if they actually lose all 20 - isn't a big deal to SpaceX, but let's assume they lose all 20. At the rate they launch satellites, I'd guess that's a week of production for SpaceX, if that much. They launch two or three of these 20 satellite missions every week. 

The issue is going to be Falcon 9s are grounded until the FAA says they can fly again. That means Crew 9 is on hold in mid-August, as well as the Polaris Dawn mission set for NET July 31. Then there are the one or two other missions for everyone on Earth that they've been launching every week. 

Going into Thursday's mission, the current version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, known as the Falcon 9 Block 5, was indisputably the most reliable launch vehicle in history. Since debuting in May 2018, the Falcon 9 Block 5, which NASA has certified for astronaut flights, never had a mission failure in all of its 297 launches before the ill-fated Starlink 9-3 mission.

Let's see - 1 failure on the 298th launch is a failure rate of 0.34%, or a success rate of 99.66%. It's easy to laugh at the FAA anomaly investigation, but as long as they don't muck up the schedule too much, if there's a way to knock that up to "five nines" or 99.999%, it would be interesting to see it.