What’s behind the recent string of failures and delays at SpaceX?
It has been an uncharacteristically messy begin to the yr for the world’s main spaceflight firm, SpaceX.
Let’s begin with the corporate’s most up-to-date delay. The most recent launch date for a NASA mission to survey the sky and higher perceive the early evolution of the Universe comes Monday evening. The launch window for this SPHEREx mission opened on February 28, however a sequence of issues with integrating the rocket and payloads have delayed the mission almost two weeks.
Then there are the Falcon 9 first stage points. Final week, a Falcon 9 rocket launched almost two dozen Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. Nonetheless, one of many rocket’s 9 engines suffered a gas leak throughout ascent. As a result of an absence of oxygen within the thinning environment, the gas leak didn’t preclude the satellites from reaching orbit. However when the primary stage returned to Earth, it caught fireplace after touchdown on a droneship, toppling over. This adopted an analogous concern in August, when there was a hearth within the engine compartment. After almost three years with no Falcon 9 touchdown failure, SpaceX had two in six months.
