NASA and SpaceX began Europa Clipper’s journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy this afternoon from Kennedy Space Center. Launch was at 12:06 PM EDT under bluebird skies and pleasant temperatures.
NASA and SpaceX began Europa Clipper’s journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy this afternoon from Kennedy Space Center. Launch was at 12:06 PM EDT under bluebird skies and pleasant temperatures.
At 1:11 PM EDT, SpaceX confirmed the successful deployment of Europa Clipper, with the probe now heading towards Mars to begin its looping journey through the solar system.
Europa Clipper now begins a roughly six-year 1.8 billion mile journey to the Jovian system which will include two gravity assists and flybys around the Sun before it reaches its destination.
Once it arrives in its orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will perform nearly fifty flybys of Europa, where its instruments will scan the Jovian moon’s oceans for potential signs of life. To date, this is the largest planetary probe NASA has ever flown, and in NASA’s estimation, Europa Clipper would cover an entire regulation basketball court.
Today’s launch was the eleventh Falcon Heavy launch, all from LC-39A. To date, each mission has been successful.
Today’s launch was the last Falcon Heavy slated to fly for this year and some months into 2025: the heavy lifter has the VIPER lunar rover, the NASA Lunar Gateway PPE & HALO mission along with two Space Force missions on the dock for next year, but this far in advance it is impossible to know when payloads will be ready.
This was the sixth and final flight for the two side-boosters, B1064 and B1065, which one year ago today supported NASA’s Psyche mission, as well as three missions for the US Space Force and one for Hughes Electronics.
Overall, it was the 184th orbital (and beyond) launch from historic Launch Complex 39A.
Space fans in Florida won’t have to wait long for the next launch. Now that the FAA has cleared Falcon 9 to resume commercial Falcon family launches, SpaceX plans to resume Starlink launches from Space Launch Complex 40 overnight tonight when it launches Starlink 10-10. The launch window opens at 1:34 AM EDT and closes at 5:26 AM the same day.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the agency responsible for commercial spaceflight, has announced that SpaceX may resume regular launches of Falcon 9.
The FAA notified SpaceX on Oct. 11 that the Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to regular flight operations. The FAA reviewed and accepted the SpaceX-led investigation findings and corrective actions for the mishap that occurred with the Crew-9 mission (Sept. 28).
Also on Oct. 11, FAA closed the SpaceX-led investigations for the Falcon 9 mishaps that occurred with the Starlink 9-3 (July 11) and Starlink 8-6 (Aug. 28) missions.
The FAA, October 11, 2024
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 on September 28, 2024, 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.
Due to what SpaceX labeled as an “off-nominal de-orbit burn” the second stage used for the Crew 9 flight missed its landing area, resulting in SpaceX announcing nearly immediately that it had experienced an anomaly and that it was grounding the vehicle while it investigated the issue. On September 29, the FAA announced that was requiring an investigation and that until complete, the federal agency would not issue the vehicle any new launch licenses. In effect, this “grounded” Falcon 9.
The FAA did grant SpaceX a license for the ESA Hera launch on October 7, saying that there was no risk to public safety because the mission did not dispose of its second stage by deorbiting it in Earth’s atmosphere.
The launch schedule for the Europa Clipper mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy remains uncertain today after Hurricane Milton’s passing through the Space Coast region.
Originally scheduled to launch on October 10, the launch was postponed in advance of Hurricane Milton’s approach and the payload and rocket were both secured for the approaching storm.
Today, a little more than a day after Milton’s surviving eye wall passed through the Space Coast region, NASA and SpaceX are checking for damage to the facilities on the base.
According to NASA, “Once the winds subsided to a safe level [yesterday], the center’s Ride Out Team and engineering teams began initial checkouts to ensure bridges are safe and useable. Later, a larger assessment team will thoroughly check the entire center.”
Part of that check will of course be the LC-39A infrastructure used to launch Falcon Heavy, as well as other buildings and infrastructure necessary to support the launch. That will also include areas not on Kennedy Space Center proper, for example, the Space Launch Delta 45 supports launch tracking, safety and weather, and they too much give the all-clear prior to a launch. (UPDATE: Space Launch Delta 45 issued an all-clear at 2PM October 11)
The eye of the storm went offshore somewhere near Titusville and Kennedy Space Center about 4 AM EDT on Thursday, but the region continued to experience sustained winds well into the day before finally subsiding late in the afternoon.
Neither NASA nor SpaceX have officially announced a launch date for Europa Clipper, with NASA saying yesterday that “The agency’s Europa Clipper launch team will schedule an official launch date when teams from NASA and SpaceX are able to perform their assessments, and confirm it’s safe to launch. Teams are working to protect launch opportunities no earlier than Sunday, Oct. 13.”
The agency added that the launch window for this mission extends until November 6th.
Weather should not be a problem for the launch team from Sunday onward into next week, as the general weather forecast for the region calls for sunny skies.
The FAA currently has a hold on the Falcon family launches while the company investigates a second-stage anomaly with Crew 9, but that will not be a problem for this launch as it will be licensed by NASA.
Talk of Titusville reached out to the FAA for clarification, and they replied, “An FAA license is not required for space activities the government carries out for the government, such as some NASA or Department of Defense launches. The Europa Clipper mission is being done by and for NASA.”
As such the FAA’s required investigation will not be a factor for this launch.
Update 7PM EDT 11 OCT 24: Falcon 9 Has Been Cleared For Flight By FAA. This should answer any license questions about Falcon Heavy as well.
Ever the masters of threading the weather needle, SpaceX sent a Falcon 9 on its way to orbit and the Hera probe on its way to the Didymos binary asteroid system impacted by NASA’s DART probe on September 26, 2022. Hera will return to the system for further investigations, including deploying two small landers.
SpaceX and the European Space Agency are planning to launch ESA’s Hera probe from Space Launch Complex 40 on Monday, October 7th. The launch window extends from 10:52 AM – 11:27 AM EDT.
The flight will mark the return to flight for Falcon family rockets after the September 28, 2024 launch of Crew 9 from Cape Canaveral, but according to the FAA it is for the Hera 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. The second stage’s final burn was “off-nominal,” according to SpaceX, and the stage re-entered outside of its designated area. SpaceX immediately announced it was “pausing” Falcon 9 flights while it investigated the matter and two days later, the FAA announced that it was requiring a formal investigation into the incident.
That investigation put the Monday, October 7 target date for Hera’s launch in doubt, but SpaceX has been given a special exemption for the Hera flight because the second stage will not be re-entering Earth orbit:
Assuming a successful LRR (Launch Readiness Review), Falcon 9 will again soar over Florida skies tomorrow morning.
According to ESA, “Hera is a planetary defence mission under development at the European Space Agency. Its objectives are to investigate the Didymos binary asteroid, including the very first assessment of its internal properties, and to measure in great detail the outcome of NASA’s DART mission kinetic impactor test. Hera will provide extremely valuable information for future asteroid deflection missions and science; increasing our understanding of asteroid geophysics as well as solar system formation and evolutionary processes.”
ESA: Hera Mission page
The L-1 Forecast from the 45th Weather Squadron of the Launch Delta 45 command of the US Space Force is not optimistic for a the next three days:
And after that, things will only get worse as a tropical system approaches the area midweek.
We will update this article with the official POV forecasts from the 45th Weather Squadron are updated.
Eastward towards an equatorial orbit.
SpaceCoastLaunchCalendar.com will have a livestream of the launch if you’re not able to watch the launch in person: Livestream
SpaceX will have a live stream of the launch on its website. This will also be available on the X platform. Coverage starts about fifteen minutes before liftoff.
Spaceflight Now will have coverage of the launch starting about one hour before liftoff on Youtube: link
For official updates regarding launch times, SpaceX.com is the best source of information. Starlink launch times change from time to time, and the company generally updates their website within minutes of the decision to change the launch time. This is very handy if none of the streaming options on YouTube have started their broadcasts.
Remember that there is a delay between a launch stream and the actual countdown clock. That is simply because of physics: it takes time for the signal to travel from the launch site, through the Internet, and back down to your phone, resulting in a five to fifteen-second delay.
Next Space Flight an app for iOS and Android phones, has a real-time countdown clock that is accurate to a second, give or take. The app is free. Search the App Store or Google Play. They are also on the web: nextspaceflight.com.
Since the launch is during the morning, a lot of options are available for spectators: Jetty Park, the Banana River Bridge on FL 528 W or the southern Titusville parks on Washington Avenue / US-1 are your best bets.
Cocoa Beach will have great views of the launch once it clears any obstructions from the rising rocket and a viewer’s location.
Playalinda Beach is several miles north of the launch pad, but ignition and of course the flight of the rocket are visible from that location. If you go, go early in case the crowds are heavy.
This flight is one where the booster will be expended after its duty cycle. This is being done in order to get the maximum performance possible out of the launch vehicle. That in mind, there will be no sonic boom in the Space Coast region for a returning booster.
About twenty minutes before Falcon 9 launches, the propellant plumbing is cleared.
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.
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.
More From Talk of Titusville:
Crew 9 Launches To ISS
SpaceX Pausing Falcon Family Launches While It Investigates Second Stage Anomaly
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.”
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.
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
Overnight, SpaceX announced that it had experienced an anomaly with the Falcon 9 second stage used to launch Crew 9 on September 28, and that it was grounding the vehicle while it investigated the issue:
At the time of this writing, the Federal Administration Administration (FAA) has not commented on this matter, or whether it would formally withhold launch licensing from Falcon 9 while SpaceX completed its investigation.
Notably, this incident occurred after Commander Nick Hague and Mission Specialist Alexsandr Gurbonov had separated from the second stage, and beforehand, the stage had provided a nominal orbital insertion for them aboard Crew Dragon and Crew 9. That mission continues with a planned docking at ISS sometime around 5:30 PM EDT today.
SpaceX’s announcement was sparse on details, however the problem was explained well by Dr. Jonathon McDowell of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
McDowell said X.com earlier this morning that the Falcon 9 second stage used yesterday did not deorbit as planned and probably came down east of New Zealand sometime overnight:
McDowell, who meticulously maintains a list of all launches and other space events, added on X.com, “The most likely failure mode that still results in reentry is a slight underburn (less delta-V, higher resulting perigee). If you underburn too much the perigee will be too high for reentry to occur. So you expect the entry to be further along the orange line but not by too much.”
He added in a successive post, “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.”
SpaceX is known to complete its investigations quickly, and if it is not restricted from launching by the FAA, one can expect them to investigate and remediate the problems with the Falcon 9 second stages with alacrity. The chances, however, of the FAA requiring a formal investigation and safety determination seems high if the immediate past is any guideline.
It is notable that this is the second major incident this year for a Falcon 9 second stage, with the first being on July 11th when a Starlink launch went awry due to a Merlin Vacuum engine failure. The FAA required SpaceX to make a public safety determination prior to returning to flight, a process that took fifteen days.
SpaceX also had a first stage landing failure in August, which resulted in the FAA requiring SpaceX to make a second public safety determination prior to launching again Falcon 9. That took only three days.
It’s unknown if yesterday’s issue and the one on July 11th are related in any way, and any conjecture that they are is just guesswork at this point. Short of SpaceX announcing that there is any relationship between the Jully 11 issue and the one this morning on September 29, no one knows one exists. That said, it is a second problem in 2024 with the second stage of the venerable Falcon 9.
The FAA has yet to make any public comments regarding today’s SpaceX announcement, but it would not be surprising if they were to formally require a new public safety determination for the incident SpaceX described this morning.
SpaceX has multiple launches upcoming on its immediate manifest, including the Europa Clipper on Falcon Heavy, which is planned to fly NET October 10 from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. They also have the HERA mission scheduled for NET October 7, a mission for OneWeb NET October 1st and a few Starlink mission interspersed in between. As always, SpaceX is busy.
Those launch dates are reasonably in question as a result of the Crew 9 issue, as all are within a fifteen-day window of time, if using the July 2024 Falcon 9 second stage issue is any guideline.
None of that is set in stone, however, and this is a very fluid situation on Sunday, September 29th.
Stay tuned.
SpaceX successfully launched the Crew 9 mission Saturday, November 28, 2024 from Space Launch Complex 40 in the first crewed launch from that storied pad. Liftoff was at 01:17 PM EDT under broken skies and a building threat of storms.
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