Kaboom! SpaceX rocket booster grounded after explosion

RIP booster ? pic.twitter.com/jmlt1VoKb8

— Empress Heavy (@HeavyMetalShip) August 28, 2024

Watch the SpaceX rocket booster 1st stage explode on the deck of its droneship on Wednesday, after a landing leg gave out. Late in the day Wednesday, the FAA grounded the Falcon 9 rocket. Video via SpaceX.

SpaceX rocket grounded after fiery booster explosion

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster suffered a failure while attempting to land on its droneship – in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida – on Wednesday morning, August 28, 2024. Then, due to the mishap, late in the day on Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. Reuters reported an FAA spokesperson as saying:

No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.

The rocket booster first stage is meant to be reusable and has wowed space fans with its dead-on landings on ocean-going droneships. Wednesday’s exploding booster – named B1062 – was on its 23rd mission when it toppled over upon landing. You can see on the videos that one of B1062’s four landing legs gave out, causing the booster to fall on its side on the deck of the droneship in a fiery explosion. RIP, B1062!

The Falcon 9 rocket launches a solid percentage of what goes into orbit nowadays, partly because there are so many Starlink launches. But also, the rocket is used in other missions: it was due to launch the private Polaris Dawn mission this week. Reuters commented that the Falcon 9 is:

… a rocket that much of the Western world relies on.

Explosion follows on the heels of another mishap

SpaceX had another rocket booster mishap just last month with an in-flight failure on July 11, 2024. That Falcon 9 rocket failed to boost its payload of Starlink satellites into their proper orbits. The rocket’s upper stage had a leak of liquid oxygen. That incident also resulted in the FAA’s grounding the SpaceX Falcon 9. But, after two weeks, the Falcon 9 returned to flight on July 27 and delivered 23 Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida.

Before Wednesday’s explosion, the Falcon 9 successfully deployed 21 Starlink satellites. But SpaceX had been planning a second Starlink launch from California just hours later. Following the booster incident, the company decided to stand down on the second launch in order to assess the situation in Florida.

Polaris Dawn is also now in a holding pattern, with rumors that it might be “several weeks” before it launches. The Polaris Dawn mission involves four civilians and the first all-civilian spacewalk. It was supposed to launch early Tuesday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Then it was supposed to launch Wednesday. But weather and other issues pushed back the launch twice this week.

As of yesterday afternoon, we were still waiting to hear how the droneship – named A Shortfall of Gravitas – fared after the incident.

Meanwhile, according FAA decree, the Falcon 9 is grounded.

You can see the back landing legs piston seems to detach from the tip of the landing leg. pic.twitter.com/RbRdUmRsYT

— JoshLoweSpace2 (@JoshLoweSpace2) August 28, 2024

Bottom line: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster exploded on a droneship in the Atlantic. Following the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the Falcon 9.