FAA grounds SpaceX Falcon 9 fleet after booster mishap. When will Polaris Dawn mission launch?
The highly anticipated launch date of the Polaris Dawn mission — featuring the world's first spacewalk involving civilian astronauts — is now in limbo after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets for the second time in two months.
The FAA launched an investigation into SpaceX's Falcon 9 first-stage booster rockets hours after a booster's fiery mishap just before 4 a.m. Wednesday out in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster tipped over and fell after landing aboard the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas. That uncrewed Falcon 9 had flown on the Starlink 8-6 broadband-satellite mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and no injuries or public property damages were reported.
"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," an FAA statement said. "The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions," the statement said.
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As of Thursday morning, SpaceX did not publicly release information on the FAA investigation. Nor did the company announce a new target liftoff time for Polaris Dawn, which will send four crew members into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Polaris Dawn crew members are mission commander Jared Isaacman; pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew F-16 Fighting Falcons; and two SpaceX lead space operations engineers: mission specialist/medical officer Anna Menon and mission specialist Sarah Gillis.
SpaceX officials previously scrubbed Polaris Dawn launch attempts Wednesday and Thursday, citing poor weather forecasts in the crew's Dragon capsule's splashdown area off the Florida coastline.
The FAA did not announce a timetable for its ongoing Falcon 9 investigation.
"A return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the anomaly 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," the FAA statement said.
In July, the FAA grounded SpaceX's Falcon 9s after an upper-stage liquid oxygen leak caused a batch of Starlink satellites to deploy into an eccentric orbit — and they re-entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up. That launch took flight from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California.
FAA officials granted SpaceX permission to resume launches two weeks later.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at [email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Polaris Dawn launch status unknown after FAA grounds SpaceX Falcon 9s