SpaceX’s next crewed mission for NASA is officially back on the launch calendar after U.S. regulators cleared the company’s workhorse rocket to return to flight.
On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration authorized SpaceX to resume launches of its Falcon 9 rocket, lifting a four-day grounding imposed earlier this week following an upper-stage anomaly. The decision allows NASA and SpaceX to proceed with the Crew-12 astronaut mission, now targeted for liftoff at 6:01 a.m. EST (1101 GMT) on Wednesday, Feb. 11, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station pose together for a crew portrait in their pressure suits at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. From left are, Roscosmos cosmonaut and Mission Specialist Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, Pilot and Commander respectively, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut and Mission Specialist Sophie Adenot. Credit :SpaceX
The brief stand-down stemmed from an incident on Monday, Feb. 2, during a Falcon 9 launch from California carrying 25 Starlink broadband satellites. While the rocket’s second stage successfully deployed the spacecraft into low Earth orbit, it failed to ignite its engine for a planned deorbit burn. As a result, the upper stage reentered Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner.
It marked the fourth upper-stage issue involving Falcon 9 over the past 19 months. One earlier event did not prompt a formal review, while two others led to FAA-mandated investigations that kept the rocket grounded for roughly two weeks each. This time, however, the inquiry concluded far more quickly.
“The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “The final mishap report cites the probable root cause as the Falcon 9 Stage 2 engine’s failure to ignite prior to the deorbit burn. SpaceX identified technical and organizational preventive measures to avoid a recurrence of the event. The Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to flight.”
With regulatory clearance in hand, attention now turns to Crew-12, SpaceX’s next human spaceflight on behalf of NASA. The mission will carry four astronauts — NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and European astronaut Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency — aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom for a roughly nine-month stay aboard the International Space Station.
If Wednesday’s launch proceeds as planned, the Crew Dragon capsule will restore the ISS to its typical complement of seven residents. The orbiting laboratory has been staffed by just three crew members — one American and two Russians — since Jan. 15, when SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission returned to Earth ahead of schedule.
Crew-11’s early departure marked the first medical evacuation in the ISS’s more than two decades of continuous human occupation. NASA has not disclosed the identity of the affected astronaut or details of the medical condition, citing privacy considerations.
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