The FAA released a brief statement recognizing that the second stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 used for the Crew 9 launch landed outside of its designated landing zone, and that they are requiring an investigation:

“The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX NASA Crew-9 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on September 28. The incident involved the Falcon 9 second stage landing outside of the designated hazard area. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.”

FAA, September 30, 2024

The FAA did note that no injuries or property damage has been reported, which is their primary concern in this matter.

For their part, SpaceX announced on Sunday that they were pausing Falcon-family launches while they conducted their investigation into the issue with the Crew-9 second stage:

Effectively, the FAA’s announcement today formalizes a process that SpaceX had already announced and started.

What Happened?

After launching NASA’s Crew 9 mission with Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov and NASA Astronaut Nick Hague aboard Crew Dragon on their mission to the International Space Station, the second stage of Falcon 9 separated from the capsule and was later commanded to fire its engine one last time in order for it to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. A specific area in the Pacific Ocean was targeted so as to minimize any risk of surviving debris causing injuries or property damage.

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According to SpaceX on Sunday, that burn was “off-nominal,” which caused the second stage to land outside of the designated area.

While the official information released by SpaceX thus far has been relatively non-specific, Dr. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics posted a graphic on X.com on Sunday morning showing his estimation of the ground track of S2 on its final orbit along with area in which the stage probably came down.

In that post he McDowell said, “Here is the ground track showing the planned reentry area at bottom left. My analysis suggests that an off nominal deorbit that still ends up with stage reentry will impact on the orange line somewhere between the end of the white rectangle and the equator.”

Why Is This Important?

While the Pacific Ocean is obviously a very big place, and relatively speaking, the second stage of a rocket is not, planned re-entries must still come down in their designated zone. Outside of that is considered a hazardous operation because of the non-zero chance of injuries or property damage. In turn, this triggers the need for a formal investigation prior to the FAA issuing a launch license for SpaceX’s next mission.

How Long Is Falcon 9 Grounded?

It depends. If SpaceX can make a case that this issue would not have resulted in increased danger to people or property, they can ask the FAA to make a determination of that as fact and to resume issuing Falcon family launch licenses while SpaceX completes their investigation(s) and subsequent modifications and improvements to Falcon 9’s second stage.

In July of this year, that’s exactly what happened: fourteen days after Starlink 9-3 had a second-stage anomaly, the FAA issued a determination that no public safety issues were the result of that particular incident.

Later, in August, the same sort of determination was released by the FAA only three days after a landing failure of the booster used for Starlink 8-6.

That would imply that this launch pause will also be short, but it is difficult to say that with complete certainty, given that this is the second failure of a Falcon-family second-stage in the past three months.

As always, stay tuned. There’s more to come on this story.

See also: FAA Rules For Launch Mishaps