Falcon 9 spacecraft is required by the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground its flights

On August 28 local time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States announced that it was suspending the flight missions of the SpaceX "Falcon 9" spacecraft and requiring an investigation into the mission failure of the spacecraft on that day.

It is reported that the "Falcon 9" failed in a routine mission. This is the second grounding incident of SpaceX this year. In the early morning of that day, the "Falcon 9" rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and successfully sent 21 Starlink satellites into orbit. However, the recoverable first stage of the rocket toppled over when it landed on an unmanned ship at sea hundreds of kilometers away from the launch site and disintegrated and fell into the Atlantic Ocean. This is the first recovery failure of the "Falcon 9" since February 2021. SpaceX immediately canceled another planned Starlink satellite launch mission in California on the same day.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said that there were no reports of public injuries or damage to public property in this incident, but the Federal Aviation Administration, out of caution, required a comprehensive investigation.

The "Falcon 9" rocket is a rocket that the Western world relies on quite a bit to send satellites and humans into space. Its grounding is relatively rare. In July this year, the "Falcon 9" was also grounded due to a malfunction of the second stage rocket in space, causing a batch of Starlink satellites to crash. That was the first grounding since 2016. At that time, it took about 15 days from grounding to resuming flights.

This latest grounding of the "Falcon 9" may further delay the launch of SpaceX's highly anticipated "Polaris Dawn" mission. Four private astronauts were originally preparing to attempt the first commercial spacewalk by humans. This mission has been delayed many times due to launch pad failures and bad weather. In addition, the "Falcon 9" was originally planned to send two NASA astronauts aboard the "Dragon" spacecraft into space in late September so that they can go to the International Space Station. At present, this "Dragon" spacecraft is the hope for the two astronauts staying at the International Space Station to "go home". It is currently unknown whether this grounding will affect the launch of the "Dragon" spacecraft in late September.