/i/1302092196.png?f=meta "SpaceX launches Falcon 9 again after failed launch, sensor investigation – IT Pro – News")
SpaceX is launching another Falcon 9 on Saturday, the first time the rocket has flown since a failed launch earlier this month. The company says it will replace a problematic sensor on the new Starlink flight.
SpaceX say that it will launch again on Saturday, July 27. This will involve SL-10-9, a mission to launch 23 Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is the seventeenth flight of the first stage of the rocket, which is again to land on a SpaceX ship.
The Starlink launch is the first since July 11, when a Falcon 9 launch failed; the second stage failed to ignite, preventing the Starlink satellites from reaching a usable orbit. It was the first Falcon 9 launch failure since 2015, and the first of 335 consecutive launch failures.
That’s a rare success record for the rocket, but the time SpaceX needed to get the Falcon flight-ready again is also remarkably short. In the past, investigations into failed launches often took months and sometimes even years.
SpaceX writes in an update that it has identified a problem in the rocket. It concerns ‘the most likely cause’ of the failure. This would lie in a cable of a pressure sensor that was connected to the oxygen system of the rocket. A crack would have developed in it, due to vibrations of the rocket, allowing liquid oxygen to leak through the insulation of the engine. Because of that leak, the engine cooled down a lot, causing it to start too quickly and parts of the engine to burn out. SpaceX says that it has removed the sensor and sensor cable from the rocket during a next launch. According to the company, the function of that sensor can also be picked up by other sensors.
It’s not just SpaceX itself that says this. The US Federal Aviation Administration, which oversaw the mandatory research, has also approved the rocket. The FAA says in a statement to TechCrunch that the investigation is still ongoing, but that based on SpaceX’s findings, it concludes that there is no danger to the public from the launch. “That means the Falcon 9 can fly again while the general investigation is ongoing, as long as all other permit requirements are met.”
