SpaceX wants to resume Falcon 9 launches after one of its rockets suffered an upper stage failure last week, forcing it to jettison its satellites at a lower orbit than planned. The company has asked the Federal Aviation Administration for a public safety ruling to allow it to resume flights.
An FAA spokesman said: Registry SpaceX said it made the request on July 15, and that “the FAA is reviewing the request and will make a decision based on data and safety at every step of the process.”
“When we receive a public safety determination request, the agency evaluates safety-critical systems, the nature and consequences of the anomaly, the adequacy of existing flight safety analyses, safety organization performance, and environmental factors,” the FAA said in a statement.
“If the FAA finds there are no public safety issues, operators may resume flying while the investigation continues, provided all other licensing requirements are met.”
In SpaceX’s opinion, the accident did not pose a public safety issue. The Falcon 9 first stage launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 22:35 on July 11 and landed normally on the drone ship. The upper stage did not perform well, SpaceX said, causing a liquid oxygen leak. The first burn of the upper stage’s Merlin vacuum engine went well, but an “anomaly” occurred when the second burn was supposed to take place, leaving the Starlink satellite payload in a lower orbit than planned.
The upper stage escaped the “anomaly” and was deactivated normally, but the malfunction caused the Starlink constellation to remain in a lower orbit than planned. SpaceX said of Starlink that the satellites would “re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and be completely destroyed.”
“It does not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety.”
F.A.A. rule The requirements for resuming flying after an accident are clear: either the agency accepts the final accident report and implements corrective actions, or, assuming the accident did not involve a safety-critical system and did not pose a threat to public safety, the FAA can agree to the resumption of flying operations while the accident investigation is still ongoing.
Federal agencies have not yet made a decision on SpaceX’s request as of this writing, but the request itself indicates that the company has a good understanding of what caused the anomaly and likely has a plan to fix it. The Falcon 9 had proven to be a very reliable workhorse until this incident.
Otherwise, the FAA would not be able to grant the request due to the risk that another upper stage anomaly could occur, with more adverse consequences.
All of this may bode well for unmanned commercial operations, such as sending Starlink further into orbit, but launching humans aboard the Falcon 9 is another matter entirely. Another issue with the upper stage may not be an issue for the public on the ground, but it could mean a very bad day for astronauts aboard Crew Dragon.®
