Today, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 performed a nominal return-to-flight mission after the rocket was briefly grounded due to an anomaly during the last mission two weeks ago. In the last couple of days, the company successfully tried to obtain an exception from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to resume the flight operation before the full mishap investigation is officially over.
All 20 Starlink satellites were lost on July 12 due to a liquid oxygen leak within the insulation around the Merlin engine that ultimately failed the unit when it experienced a “hard start” while trying to reignite in orbit:
“The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s oxygen system. This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line.”
The company specified that the leak led to the excessive cooling of engine components, most importantly those associated with the delivery of ignition fluid to the engine.
For today’s and several upcoming flights, SpaceX implemented a temporary measure. It ditched the sense line altogether as the engineers already have a backup option to measure oxygen pressure onboard the second stage.
Saturday’s flight went smoothly, and SpaceX has subsequently confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that this time around, the second stage reignited nominally, and it successfully delivered 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.
The long-term solution for the technical issue is still in the works. It is already being tested at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, with enhanced qualification analysis and oversight by the FAA and involvement from the SpaceX investigation team.
SpaceX’s aim for 2024 was to achieve an unprecedented rate of 144 orbital flights. Although it now seems that this goal is hardly achievable, the company might still get pretty close if it manages to avoid any other major hiccups in the upcoming months.