18 October, 2024
After delivering astronauts to ISS, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 grounded after third anomaly in three months
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is grounded again after the vehicle’s second stage did not come down in the expected area of the ocean, following an otherwise successful mission that delivered a Dragon capsule and its crew to orbit.
“We will resume launching once we better understand root cause,” the company said in a statement posted to X.
The Crew-9 mission, which carried NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to orbit, launched on Saturday. (Two seats were left empty to ensure the two Boeing Starliner astronauts could return on the capsule in February.) Hague and Gorbunov arrived safely at the International Space Station early Sunday evening.
While the most important part of the mission was carried out without a hitch, the issue that occurred during the second stage’s deorbit burn marks the third time in three months that the Falcon 9 has experienced an anomaly. The deorbit burn is a precisely targeted firing of the stage’s single Merlin Vacuum engine to ensure any debris from reentry lands in a specific zone in the ocean.
The other two issues appeared in July and August. In the first instance on July 11, a liquid oxygen leak sprung up in the insulation surrounding the second stage’s engine during a routine Starlink launch, which led to the loss of the 20 satellites on board. Later, on August 28, the booster came down hot in its attempt to land on a SpaceX landing drone ship and was destroyed on impact.
These have not grounded the Falcon 9 for long; after the issue with the liquid oxygen leak in July, SpaceX resumed flying the rocket after just two weeks. SpaceX said it had identified the cause of the leak — a cracked line connected to the pressure sensor — and took a number of steps to ensure the issue didn’t recur. The landing anomaly in August led to no pause in missions at all as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration allowed the company to continue with launches while the investigation was underway.
This most recent issue could delay some critical upcoming missions, notably the European Space Agency’s Hera mission to study asteroids on October 7 and NASA’s Europa clipper mission to the Jupiter moon of the same name on October 10. Both missions have tight launch windows that close by the end of the month. A Falcon 9 mission scheduled to launch 20 internet satellites for Eutelsat OneWeb scheduled for last night was also delayed.
TechCrunch Space: SpaceX calls out 'systematic challenges' with FAA
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I wanted to flag once again that the final agenda for the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt is now live. I’ll be pushing this event for the next few weeks, given that we’re just a bit over a month away! We’d love for you to join us.
Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at [email protected] or send a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You also can send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at [email protected]. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop instructions and links to encrypted messaging apps.
Story of the week
SpaceX’s fight against regulators kicked up a notch last week. First, the FAA announced it was seeking two fines, totaling $633,009, from the company for alleged launch license violations on two occasions that took place over a year ago.
While this is no doubt just a rounding error for SpaceX, the company hit back hard against the allegations in a letter sent to top congressional leaders. The company asserts that the inability of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) to process “relatively minor” license updates is further proof that the agency is unable to keep pace with the space industry’s — but chiefly SpaceX’s — rapid growth.
CEO Elon Musk used his platform on X to put his perspective more plainly: “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA.”
Deal of the week
NASA wants to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, but right now, astronauts have to be in direct line of sight with Earth to phone home.
The space agency is looking to change that with its developing Near Space Network, and it’s willing to pay potentially huge sums to private companies to help make continuous lunar communications a reality. Those plans got a boost last week when NASA announced it had awarded Intuitive Machines a contract to build and deploy a satellite constellation capable of providing navigation and communications for future missions on or around the moon.
The contract has a maximum potential value of $4.82 billion, though Intuitive Machines will get $150 million guaranteed to get started.
This week in space history
A year ago NASA made history when its OSIRIS-REx capsule became the first American mission to deliver a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft landed in Utah after a nearly three-year journey home from the asteroid Bennu. The capsule returned around 250 grams (8.8 ounces) of rocks and dust.
Read more about the mission, why NASA selected Bennu, and what the samples may tell us about the formation of our solar system.
Exclusive: No, the FAA isn’t fining SpaceX because of Elon Musk’s politics, former FAA head says
This week, Elon Musk identified a new constraint for his Mars-bound ambitions. It wasn’t the -85°F surface temperature, or the 140 million miles he’ll need to travel. Rather, it’s something far more pedestrian: “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA,” he posted on X.
That post followed a previous one in which he vowed to sue the government agency, arguing in a series of X posts that the FAA was politically motivated when it levied $633,009 in fines against SpaceX on Tuesday. One fine was for allegedly using an unapproved rocket propellant farm in a launch last year; the other was for using an unauthorized launch control room. SpaceX said in a letter to Congress Thursday it “forcefully rejects” the notion that the company didn’t follow FAA launch procedure.
“The FAA space division is harassing SpaceX about nonsense that doesn’t affect safety,” Musk posted, adding, “I am highly confident that discovery will show improper, politically-motivated behavior by the FAA.”
But Billy Nolen, the former acting administrator of the FAA in 2023, pushed back against Musk’s assertion that the FAA was unfairly targeting SpaceX because, as Musk implied, the billionaire’s choice of political candidates to support.
As an agency, the FAA “is about as apolitical as it gets,” he told TechCrunch.
Nolen, who is now the chief regulatory affairs officer of aircraft company Archer Aviation, pointed out that FAA heads purposefully have five-year term limits. That means presidential administrations don’t automatically get to appoint a new FAA leader each time a new party is sworn in. “We don’t operate on behalf of Republicans or Democrats,” he said.
Musk’s meatier complaint was about the perpetual slowness of the agency. “It really should not be possible to build a giant rocket faster than the paper can move from one desk to another,” Musk said at the All-In Summit on September 10.
That was an argument that Nolen could empathize with. The FAA, he said, is burdened with an enormous mandate, yet “there’s never enough money.”
The roughly $24 billion budget he was given during his time at the agency may seem like a lot of money. But, he said, about $19 billion was committed to salaries and operations and about $4 billion went to upkeep on an increasingly aging infrastructure.
“The agency still has a lot of legacy systems,” he said, pointing out that the FAA itself maintains over 200 air traffic control towers. “Some towers are still using paper strips,” he said, referring to how some towers are still tracking flights on paper.
Nolen said that the agency often doesn’t have the budget for new technologies that could help it better regulate a rapidly growing space industry. “The FAA has to be funded to the level of what our expectations are of having a world-class, best-in-class system,” he said.
Now that Nolen is at Archer, a company working on newfangled electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft — one of the upstarts that tends to chafe against FAA bureaucracy — he’s thought a lot about what agency changes could help new technology. Within his lifetime, he wants the FAA to become “100% fully predictive” using artificial intelligence, he said.
Think of the sheer amount of data soaring through the sky every minute: A single Boeing 787 flight generates a half terabyte of data, according to a 2017 interview with a Boeing engineer. Imagine, Nolen said, “the ability to pull all of that together, synthesize it and say, is there anything in that data that gives us pause?”
He emphasized that it would help the agency move faster and speed up approvals for things like, say, SpaceX launches.
But Nolen also points out that the FAA relies heavily on experts, turning to engineers, founders, and academics to guide its policy, and Musk’s anti-FAA rhetoric is damaging. Nolen said it’s crucial for someone like Musk, who is “one of the greatest creative minds we have,” to cooperate and help the FAA understand what new age space companies need.
“We don’t ever want to be in a place where there’s one set of rules, but if you’ve got enough money, they don’t really apply to you,” he said.
'Stop harassing Starlink,' SpaceX president tells Brazilian judge
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell made a public plea to one of Brazil’s top judicial figures on Thursday, asking him to “please stop harassing Starlink” amid the ongoing battle in the country against Elon Musk’s social media business X.
Musk has been engaged in a months-long dispute with the Brazilian courts, which have been waging a war against X for hosting accounts that the courts say spread extremism and misinformation.
After X refused to comply with court orders last month asking it to remove certain accounts, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered an immediate, country-wide suspension of the platform. That ban, backed by Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was unanimously upheld earlier this week.
But the feud has been spilling over to Musk’s other businesses, chiefly SpaceX, which sells its satellite internet service Starlink in the country. Immediately after banning X, Brazil reportedly froze Starlink’s company accounts, in order to guarantee X pay the more than $3 million in fines it owes Brazilian courts, local media reported.
That order is specifically focused on Starlink Brazil Holding Ltda and Starlink Brazil Servicos de Internet Ltda, which have provided internet access to around 250,000 customers inside the country since January 2022. Many of those customers are located in regions of the country underserved by traditional telecom infrastructure. It’s likely one of Starlink’s largest markets outside of North America.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
The court also issued an order to Starlink demanding that it block access to X, which the firm originally said it would disobey; the satellite communications firm backtracked a day later and said that it would comply with the order.
Last month on X, Starlink said the order freezing its assets is “based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X.” In a separate post on September 3, Starlink said it had initiated legal proceedings in Brazil against the order.
“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” it said.
SpaceX later sent a company-wide email to employees advising them against traveling to Brazil, even for personal reasons. The company is also relocating a small group of SpaceX employees that are based in Brazil. The email and relocations were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Shotwell’s communication is the latest effort to move the ball in this complex financial and geopolitical snarl.
The entanglement of Starlink in the conflict is the strongest example yet that political leaders and regulators may have few qualms about issuing penalties against Musk’s various businesses, regardless of whether they are the subject of a dispute.
SpaceX debuts portable Starlink Mini for $599
SpaceX unveiled Starlink Mini, a more portable version of its satellite internet product that is small enough to fit inside a backpack.
Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the Starlink Mini kit for $599, according to an invitation sent to customers and viewed by TechCrunch. That’s $100 more than the standard Starlink kit. They were also given the option to bundle Mini Roam service with their existing service plan for an additional $30 per month, though the data is capped at 50 gigabytes per month.
That would mean a Starlink residential customer on the standard service plan would spend $150 per month. SpaceX aims to reduce the price of the kit, it said in the invitation. As of now, there is no standalone Mini Roam plan.
“Our goal is to reduce the price of Starlink for those around the world where connectivity has been unaffordable or completely unavailable,” it says. “But in regions with high usage, where Starlink Mini places additional demand on the satellite network, we are offering a limited number of the Starlink Mini Kits to start for $599.”
The Mini antenna is incredibly light: Weighing around 2.5 pounds with the kickstand, it’s only around 60% the weight of a standard Starlink dish. The service also boasts max download speeds of over 100 Mbps.
The first Starlink Minis will arrive sometime in July. The option will no doubt appeal to travelers, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that the Mini could be “a great low-cost option for a good backup Internet connection if your landline goes out.”
Starlink is SpaceX’s popular satellite internet product, which is powered by more than 6,000 satellites in orbit right now. The service boasts more than 3 million customers across 100 countries.
TechCrunch Space: SpaceX's big plans for Starship in Florida
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I hope everyone had a great Independence Day. On to the news!
Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at [email protected] or send me a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You also can send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at [email protected]. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop instructions and links to encrypted messaging apps.
Story of the week
Last week was a bit slower, in terms of news — to be expected, given the holiday — but I was still super excited by this partnership between two startups to deliver AI-capable computing power to space. San Francisco-based Aethero is developing the compute, and Cosmic Shielding Corporation is providing a novel radiation shielding material. The payload will go to orbit in just days, and I’ll definitely be following the progress in the coming months.
Scoop of the week
SpaceX’s ambitious plans to launch its Starship mega-rocket up to 44 times per year from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center are causing a stir among some of its competitors. But SpaceX may have even more ambitious plans for a second launch pad right next door: Space Launch Complex (SLC)-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS).
Launch of the week
Hats off to Firefly Aerospace for launching its Alpha rocket for the fifth time late last Wednesday. The mission delivered eight CubeSats to orbit for NASA, which paid for the mission as part of its Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demo 2 program to support the development of small launchers. Rewatch the launch below.
What we’re watching
I got my hands on an advanced copy of “Wild Wild Space,” the new space documentary directed by Ross Kauffman and based on a book by space journalist Ashlee Vance. I’m mulling writing a full review, but what I will say is: It’s a raucous ride. There are many, many quotable sentences, like this one from Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck: “I’m not built to build shit.” It’ll be available on HBO on July 17 — it’s worth the watch.
Polaris Dawn will push the limits of SpaceX's human spaceflight program — here's how to watch it launch live
Update: The Polaris Dawn launch has been pushed back a day and is now planned for Wednesday, August 28 after a helium leak was detected ahead of its takeoff.
After a nearly three-year interlude, Jared Isaacman is returning to space. The billionaire entrepreneur first went to orbit as part of the Inspiration4 mission, which made history for having a crew comprised entirely of private citizens, not professional astronauts. But with this next mission, Polaris Dawn, he and mission partner SpaceX have set their sights even higher.
Literally: Polaris Dawn will fly farther than any mission using SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to date, while also soaring through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt for the first time since the days of the Apollo missions.
Even more daringly, when the four-person crew reaches around 700 kilometers (435 miles) above Earth, they’ll attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk — testing Dragon’s ability to support extravehicular activities (EVAs) and giving SpaceX’s EVA suits a spin for the very first time.
This isn’t just a commercial trip sponsored by Isaacman; it’s a joint mission with SpaceX, though the two have never publicly discussed cost.
This mission, as well as the two subsequent missions planned as part of the Polaris Dawn program, including one that will be the first crewed flight of Starship, “are meant to accelerate SpaceX’s vision to make life multi planetary,” Isaacman explained during a news conference earlier this month.
The suits are especially key to SpaceX’s ambition to build the first permanent bases on the moon and Mars. The bases “will require millions of spacesuits,” as the Polaris Dawn website says. The EVA suits that the Polaris Dawn crew will wear are evolved from the intravehicular activity suits astronauts wear inside Dragon capsules, but with a series of upgrades to make them suitable for the vacuum of space. That includes boots constructed from the same thermal material as Dragon’s trunk, a heads-up display for use during the spacewalk and enhanced mobile joints.
The Dragon spacecraft itself also has some upgrades. All four of the crew members will be wearing the EVA spacesuits even though only two crew members will actually exit the spacecraft because the interior will be depressurized prior to the walk. To enable this, SpaceX gave the spacecraft’s life support systems a boost, including adding more oxygen to the system to feed it to all four suits, increased environmental monitoring and an entirely new nitrogen repressurization system.
Like spacewalks conducted by NASA astronauts on the ISS, the Polaris Dawn crewmembers will connect their suits to umbilical cords for life support while they venture outside the craft. To support the crew members further, SpaceX added mobility aids, like handholds around the hatch, for when they venture out and back in. The entire operation, from venting the Dragon to repressurization, will take around two hours, with the two crew members actually outside the craft for 15-20 minutes.
The Polaris Dawn mission will also test Starlink laser-based communications in space, specifically the ability to connect to the Starlink satellite constellation directly from a spacecraft on orbit. The crew will further conduct a slew of science experiments and research with themselves as the subjects. For instance, they’ll be blasting through the high-energy Van Allen belt, measuring the effects of radiation on human health.
“We stand to learn quite a bit from [that environment] in terms of human health science and research,” Isaacman said in that earlier news conference. “If we get to Mars someday, we’d love to be able to come back and be healthy enough to tell people about it, so I think that it’s worthwhile to get some exposure in that environment.”
Isaacman will be joined by three others: mission pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel; and two SpaceX employees, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, an engineer and astronaut trainer; and mission specialist Anna Menon, a medical officer who’s also an engineer who runs the company’s mission control for its flights.
Polaris Dawn is now due to take off on a Falcon 9 rocket on August 28 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with a four-hour launch window that opens the same time as the initially-planned launch at 3:38 a.m. EDT. The mission will last up to five days; at the farthest point, the spacecraft will propel the crew to 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from Earth. At the end of the mission, the crew will splash down off the coast of Florida.
The launch will be streamed live on X; follow along by clicking the link here.
As William Gerstenmaier, former NASA official and now SpaceX’s VP of build flight reliability said during the press conference: “It’s time to explore.”
Polaris Dawn will push the limits of SpaceX's human spaceflight program — here's how to watch it launch live
Update: The Polaris Dawn launch has been pushed back a day and is now planned for Wednesday, August 28 after a helium leak was detected ahead of its takeoff.
After a nearly three-year interlude, Jared Isaacman is returning to space. The billionaire entrepreneur first went to orbit as part of the Inspiration4 mission, which made history for having a crew comprised entirely of private citizens, not professional astronauts. But with this next mission, Polaris Dawn, he and mission partner SpaceX have set their sights even higher.
Literally: Polaris Dawn will fly farther than any mission using SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to date, while also soaring through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt for the first time since the days of the Apollo missions.
Even more daringly, when the four-person crew reaches around 700 kilometers (435 miles) above Earth, they’ll attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk — testing Dragon’s ability to support extravehicular activities (EVAs) and giving SpaceX’s EVA suits a spin for the very first time.
This isn’t just a commercial trip sponsored by Isaacman; it’s a joint mission with SpaceX, though the two have never publicly discussed cost.
This mission, as well as the two subsequent missions planned as part of the Polaris Dawn program, including one that will be the first crewed flight of Starship, “are meant to accelerate SpaceX’s vision to make life multi planetary,” Isaacman explained during a news conference earlier this month.
The suits are especially key to SpaceX’s ambition to build the first permanent bases on the moon and Mars. The bases “will require millions of spacesuits,” as the Polaris Dawn website says. The EVA suits that the Polaris Dawn crew will wear are evolved from the intravehicular activity suits astronauts wear inside Dragon capsules, but with a series of upgrades to make them suitable for the vacuum of space. That includes boots constructed from the same thermal material as Dragon’s trunk, a heads-up display for use during the spacewalk and enhanced mobile joints.
The Dragon spacecraft itself also has some upgrades. All four of the crew members will be wearing the EVA spacesuits even though only two crew members will actually exit the spacecraft because the interior will be depressurized prior to the walk. To enable this, SpaceX gave the spacecraft’s life support systems a boost, including adding more oxygen to the system to feed it to all four suits, increased environmental monitoring and an entirely new nitrogen repressurization system.
Like spacewalks conducted by NASA astronauts on the ISS, the Polaris Dawn crewmembers will connect their suits to umbilical cords for life support while they venture outside the craft. To support the crew members further, SpaceX added mobility aids, like handholds around the hatch, for when they venture out and back in. The entire operation, from venting the Dragon to repressurization, will take around two hours, with the two crew members actually outside the craft for 15-20 minutes.
The Polaris Dawn mission will also test Starlink laser-based communications in space, specifically the ability to connect to the Starlink satellite constellation directly from a spacecraft on orbit. The crew will further conduct a slew of science experiments and research with themselves as the subjects. For instance, they’ll be blasting through the high-energy Van Allen belt, measuring the effects of radiation on human health.
“We stand to learn quite a bit from [that environment] in terms of human health science and research,” Isaacman said in that earlier news conference. “If we get to Mars someday, we’d love to be able to come back and be healthy enough to tell people about it, so I think that it’s worthwhile to get some exposure in that environment.”
Isaacman will be joined by three others: mission pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel; and two SpaceX employees, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, an engineer and astronaut trainer; and mission specialist Anna Menon, a medical officer who’s also an engineer who runs the company’s mission control for its flights.
Polaris Dawn is now due to take off on a Falcon 9 rocket on August 28 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with a four-hour launch window that opens the same time as the initially-planned launch at 3:38 a.m. EDT. The mission will last up to five days; at the farthest point, the spacecraft will propel the crew to 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from Earth. At the end of the mission, the crew will splash down off the coast of Florida.
The launch will be streamed live on X; follow along by clicking the link here.
As William Gerstenmaier, former NASA official and now SpaceX’s VP of build flight reliability said during the press conference: “It’s time to explore.”
SpaceX debuts portable Starlink Mini for $599
SpaceX unveiled Starlink Mini, a more portable version of its satellite internet product that is small enough to fit inside a backpack.
Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the Starlink Mini kit for $599, according to an invitation sent to customers and viewed by TechCrunch. That’s $100 more than the standard Starlink kit. They were also given the option to bundle Mini Roam service with their existing service plan for an additional $30 per month, though the data is capped at 50 gigabytes per month.
That would mean a Starlink residential customer on the standard service plan would spend $150 per month. SpaceX aims to reduce the price of the kit, it said in the invitation. As of now, there is no standalone Mini Roam plan.
“Our goal is to reduce the price of Starlink for those around the world where connectivity has been unaffordable or completely unavailable,” it says. “But in regions with high usage, where Starlink Mini places additional demand on the satellite network, we are offering a limited number of the Starlink Mini Kits to start for $599.”
The Mini antenna is incredibly light: Weighing around 2.5 pounds with the kickstand, it’s only around 60% the weight of a standard Starlink dish. The service also boasts max download speeds of over 100 Mbps.
The first Starlink Minis will arrive sometime in July. The option will no doubt appeal to travelers, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that the Mini could be “a great low-cost option for a good backup Internet connection if your landline goes out.”
Starlink is SpaceX’s popular satellite internet product, which is powered by more than 6,000 satellites in orbit right now. The service boasts more than 3 million customers across 100 countries.