What’s next for SpaceX’s Falcon 9

What exactly went wrong last week remains a mystery. Still, experts agree the event can’t be brushed off. “‘Oh, it was a fluke’ is not, in the modern space industry, an acceptable answer,” says McDowell. What he finds most surprising is that the malfunction didn’t occur in one of the reusable parts of the rocket (like the booster), but instead in a part known as the second stage, which SpaceX switches out each time the rocket launches. 

Stalled schedules

It remains unclear when the Falcon 9 will fly again. Several upcoming missions will likely be postponed, including the billionaire tech entrepreneur Jacob Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn, which would have been the first all-private mission to include a space walk. It’s possible NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), planned for mid-August 2024, will also be delayed. 

Uncrewed missions will be affected too. One that stands out is the Europa Clipper mission, which is intended to explore Jupiter’s icy moon and assess its habitability. According to McDowell, the mission, which is planned for October 2024, will likely be delayed by the Falcon 9 grounding. That’s because there is a narrow time frame within which the satellite can be launched. (The mission is facing a technological hangup unrelated to the Falcon 9 that could also push back its launch.) 

The incident reveals a need for the US to explore alternatives to the Falcon 9. McDowell says the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, accompanied by Boeing’s Starliner capsule, used to be the next best option for US-based crewed ISS missions. But the Atlas V is being phased out. It will be replaced by the ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, a partially reusable rocket that has made only one test flight so far. Plus, the Starliner capsule has serious issues that have left two NASA astronauts stuck at the ISS, potentially until August. 

Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn rocket could be a competitor, but it hasn’t flown yet. The aerospace company says it hopes to launch the rocket before 2025. Blue Origin’s other reusable rocket, New Shepard, is not capable of flying into orbit. 

The Falcon 9 malfunction makes these projects all the more essential. “Even the Falcon 9 can have problems,” says McDowell. “It’s important to have multiple routes of access to space.”