SpaceX is set to send its first Falcon 9 from Space Coast late Monday as the fire destroyed the booster after the fire landed.
The Falcon 9 booster is set for the 22nd time to launch the 21 Starlink satellites from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station space launch complex, targeting the 11:21pm liftoff with a backup option until 12:15am on Tuesday, and will begin at 10:48pm on Tuesday.
Boosters aim to recover from the lack of droneship gravitas.
This will mark the 21st Space Coast launch in 2025 so far.
After launching the StarLink 12-20 mission on March 2nd, @Spacex Falcon 9 Booster 1086 lands on the droneship and read the instructions. A fire broke out in the engine section and the booster fell.
The wreckage arrived at @portcanaveral today.
📸: @w_robinsonsmith pic.twitter.com/cz8jamtvvp
– SpaceFlight Now (@SpaceFlightNow) March 5, 2025
On the 20th, another Starlink booster from Cape Canaveral landed on March 2nd on the company’s other east coast-based drone ship.
“After landing, there was a nominal-off fire at the rear end of the rocket,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, Vice President of SpaceX at Space & Flight Reliability. “One of the landing legs was damaged, resulting in a rocket falling.”
He was speaking at a press conference for Crew 10 Mission Preview as SpaceX discusses all of the Falcon 9 anomalies with NASA to ensure that it doesn’t become a problem with Crew Mission.
The Booster’s loss was turned over for the high seas in December 2023, losing another August when the Booster set fire to it and turned it over, making it third away from the Space Coast in about 15 months.
So far, SpaceX has successfully recovered 415 boosters between the launches of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and reused 385 in subsequent launches. Some have achieved 20 launches, with their fleet leaders earning 26 launches on the belt.
The perpetrator behind the fire was an undetermined fuel leak that began about 85 seconds after the lift-off. Gerstenmaier said rocket fuel from the Falcon 9, essentially kerosene, was sprayed onto the hot components of the engine.
“It evaporated and created a flammable environment. But there was no oxygen to interact with the fuel along the way, so there was absolutely no problem during the ascent, and that was absolutely fine. The mission was achieved,” he said.
However, about 45 seconds after the first stage landed, enough oxygen entered the engine compartment and interacted with the still hot portion of the engine, sucking fuel and fire sparks.
“The fire was pretty extensive. It caused a lot of damage, but the damage is what we expected and what is explained in every step and process,” he said.
Garstenmeier blew the barrel panel on the side of the designed rocket, and the fire was included in the engine compartment, so even if there was a problem during the ascent, only one of the nine Falcon 9 engines would have been out and SpaceX could have completed the mission.
He said the rest of the tipped boosters are back in Port Canaveral and that part is still being investigated at Cape Canaveral.
“It’s a shame that we’ll lose a rocket after a successful mission, but the team will use this data to make sure that all Falcons are reliable due to this mission and all future missions rising and landing,” he said.
Original issue: March 10th, 2025, 2:07pm EDT
