Unlike Wednesday’s mishap, the July Falcon 9 failure involved the rocket’s second stage. A Falcon 9 had launched a group of Starlink satellites out of California on July 11 shortly before the anomaly occurred. The first leg of the mission appeared to proceed smoothly, with the Falcon 9 using its first-stage booster — the bottommost part of the rocket with nine engines that provide the initial burst of power at liftoff — to propel itself toward space. But the second stage of the rocket, which is designed to fire up after the first stage falls away and power the satellites to their final destination in orbit, failed abruptly. SpaceX later revealed there was an oxygen leak on that second stage. (Liquid oxygen or LOX is a commonly used as an oxidizer or propellant for rockets.) That led to what SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described at one point as an “RUD” — or “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” a phrase SpaceX typically uses to refer to an explosion. Within about two weeks of that incident, the FAA had determined there were “no public safety issues” involved and permitted SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to return to flight,though an investigation into the mishap overseen by the FAA is still ongoing, the agency confirmed to CNN on Wednesday. That review is not related to the investigation into the latest anomaly. The company had determined the leak was caused by a crack in a line attached to a pressure sensor, which endured some wear and tear from engine vibrations and the fact that a clamp that was meant to strap it down had come loose. The oxygen leak caused “excessive cooling” of engine parts, which left the rocket without enough fuel to burn properly, said Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management, during a July 26 news briefing. The company opted to implement a temporary fix for the issue by simply removing the pressure sensor at issue and relying on data from other instruments. On Wednesday, SpaceX confirmed that its latest Starlink flight did not experience any issues with its second stage, writing that a regular “orbit (was) achieved by Falcon 9’s upper stage after its second burn.” But the company also added that it would forgo an attempt to launch a second Starlink mission overnight in order to allow its engineers to investigate why the first-stage booster did not land correctly. “Standing down from our second @Starlink launch of the night to give the team time to review booster landing data from the previous launch,” according to a post from SpaceX on X. “A new target launch date will be shared once available.” Ad Feedback