SpaceX Falcon 9 booster ‘tipped over’ into the ocean during landing

The archetypal signifier of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed during an attempted landing connected a droneship successful the Atlantic Ocean past night. The booster had astir completed its touchdown erstwhile it tipped over, dropping into the sea.

It was the archetypal clip the institution has failed to retrieve 1 of the reusable boosters since February 2021, ending a streak of 267 palmy landings for the reusable boosters, according to CBS News.

SpaceX posted astir the failed ngo astatine 4:04AM ET, penning that the booster “tipped implicit pursuing touchdown” connected what was its 23rd launch. The 2nd signifier succeeded successful putting a batch of 21 Starlink satellites successful orbit, however, 13 of which transportation the company’s cellular transmission capability.

SpaceX had planned for back-to-back launches this greeting but postponed the 2nd one successful bid to reappraisal information from the botched landing. The setback follows different successful July, erstwhile the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded the Falcon 9 erstwhile a second-stage exploded successful July.

Before this morning’s launch, SpaceX had delayed Polaris Dawn, a ngo to nonstop 4 astronauts done the Van Allen radiation belts and effort the archetypal backstage astronaut spacewalk. The institution cited a mediocre upwind forecast arsenic the crushed for the scrubbed launch.