Catastrophic Failure: SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Carrying Starlink Satellites Experiences Explosion During Final Leg of Journey

SpaceX has confirmed that the company’s Falcon 9 rocket launch experienced catastrophic failure during the final leg of its journey into space.

Knewz.com has learned that during the second stage of the Starlink satellite-bearing flight, the first of two required “burns” was initiated successfully—the second ended in an explosion.

The development became public when author S.E. Robinson enquired after the final post-launch update usually disseminated on X by Elon Musk himself.

“Any update on the 2nd stage?” Robison asked, to which the tech mogul responded :

“Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown. Team is reviewing data tonight to understand root cause.”

RUD is a tongue-in-cheek acronym for “rapid unscheduled disassembly” often used by Musk to describe explosions suffered by his rockets.

Musk went on to say that his team was reviewing the data to understand the reason for the failure.

He further noted that the flight had at least partially achieved its objective as the “Starlink satellites were deployed.”

Be this as it may, the constellation deployed lower than intended.

According to later reports, the SpaceX team made contact with five of the 20 satellites and attempted to raise the entire constellation by triggering their ion thrusters.

Musk elaborated in another update , saying:

“We’re updating satellite software to run the ion thrusters at their equivalent of warp 9.”

“Unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work, but it’s worth a shot. The satellite thrusters need to raise orbit faster than atmospheric drag pulls them down or they burn up.”

Robinson summed up the complexity of space travel with the observation: “A million things need to go right. Only one thing needs to go wrong.”

The Falcon 9 rocket, while considered uniquely reliable, has had its fair share of “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

The last time the space vehicle exploded was on September 1, 2016. This disaster destroyed the Israeli intelligence satellite it was supposed to carry into orbit before it left the launch pad.

The ensuing blast was so big that it caused significant destruction to the Space Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral Florida .

This incident was a step backward from another explosion in 2015. According to Spaceflight Now ,  said rocket at least left the launch pad and was 139 seconds into a resupply mission when it came apart in a ball of flame.

Outweighing these incidents, however, are the Falcon 9‘s 344 consecutive successes. In 181 of these missions, 6,720 Starlink satellites were launched.

Notably, if the recently launched internet-serving stellar array fails, it would join an estimated 520 others that are in orbit but out of service.

The catastrophic failure is expected to impede the company's schedule for the rest of the year including a private space venture with four people who plan on doing the first commercial spacewalk, and NASA ’s upcoming International Space Station crew swap.

In addition to the latter, SpaceX has another 140 Falcon 9-dependent trips planned for 2024.