On Thursday, July 11th, the Falcon 9 rocket of the American space exploration technology company SpaceX encountered a rare malfunction in space, endangering the 20 Starlink satellites it carried.
According to a report by Reuters on Friday, after launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Thursday night, the rocket experienced engine problems with its second stage and failed to reignite in space, resulting in the 20 Starlink satellites being placed into a significantly lower orbit than planned.
SpaceX announced on the social platform “X” on Friday that the satellites are still being deployed but have entered the wrong orbit. “They have communicated with 5 satellites so far and are attempting to use ion thrusters to boost their orbits.”
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, stated that the satellites’ thrusters have been ignited to the maximum power and they need to increase their orbits at a speed faster than atmospheric drag to avoid burning up.
He also mentioned that SpaceX is updating the software of the Starlink satellites to force the onboard thrusters to ignite more intensely than usual, in order to prevent burning up when re-entering the atmosphere.
In a post on the X platform, Musk wrote, “The attempt to reignite the engines in space led to an RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly), the cause of which is currently unknown.” RUD is an industry abbreviation for explosion.
While SpaceX is developing the Starlink network and expanding its coverage, it is also collaborating with telecommunications companies to allow users to communicate directly with satellites via their smartphones. To enable this function, SpaceX regularly launches satellites that provide direct mobile communication. This launch included 13 satellites with new “direct-to-cell” functionality that can connect to unmodified smartphones.
The engine ignition failure occurred during the Falcon 9’s 354th mission, marking the first failure since 2016. Tom Mueller, the former vice president of SpaceX who designed the engine, stated on X, “We knew this incredible streak of success would come to an end someday, but 344 consecutive successful launches were truly remarkable! The team will solve the problem and start over.”
Since 2018, SpaceX has launched around 7,000 different designed Starlink satellites into space for global broadband internet.
Industry analysts estimate that the 20 satellites carried in this mission are collectively worth at least ten million US dollars.
The Falcon 9 is the world’s most active rocket, and this failure has broken SpaceX’s impressive streak of successful launches. This record has maintained SpaceX’s dominant position in the industry. Many countries and space companies rely on SpaceX to send satellites and astronauts into space.