One of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets exploded in orbit on Thursday night, ending Elon Musk’s 364 successful launch streak since the last failure in 2016, according to the company.
The first stage of the rocket successfully launched out of Vandenberg Space Force Base, just north of Santa Barbara, at 7:35 p.m., according to The New York Times. After the rocket shed its first stage of boosters, viewers on a live stream of the rocket’s launch noticed a large build-up of ice on the side of the rocket, according to CBS News.
In a statement on their website, the company confirmed “a liquid oxygen leak developed on the second stage” caused the build-up of ice. Liquid oxygen is used to help the propellant burn, according to NASA.
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Musk later confirmed in a post on X that the rocket had exploded.
“Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown. Team is reviewing data tonight to understand root cause,” he wrote.
The rocket did deploy the 20 Starlink satellites it was carrying, but they may not be able to stay in orbit, according to Musk.
“Starlink satellites were deployed, but the perigee may be too low for them to raise orbit. Will know more in a few hours,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
The company confirmed in the statement that the satellites were “left in an enormously high-drag environment only [83 miles] above Earth… as such, the satellites will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise.”
This is the first launch in 364 launches that SpaceX has had a failure.
“To date, we have completed 364 successful Falcon launches-safely carrying astronauts, customer payloads and thousands of Starlink satellites to orbit-making the Falcon family of rockets one of the most reliable in the world,” the company added in their statement. “SpaceX will perform a full investigation in coordination with the FAA, determine root cause, and make corrective actions to ensure the success of future missions.”
