First-Ever Commercial Space Walk Delayed After Overcautious FAA Grounds SpaceX Rocket
The launch of the private Polaris Dawn mission, originally slated for 3:38 a.m. on Saturday, is now listed as “TBD” by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Commanded by entrepreneur and pilot Jared Isaacman, the mission was set to include the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA), debut SpaceX’s new spacesuits, and aim for “the highest altitude of any human spaceflight mission since the Apollo program.” But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has grounded the flight, along with all other launches involving SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The decision came after SpaceX reported that the first-stage booster of another Falcon 9 “tipped over following touchdown on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship,” after successfully deploying 21 Starlink satellites on August 28. This was SpaceX’s 377th launch and 311th reflight, but it can’t claim to be its 342nd landing. To date, SpaceX has safely transported “50 crewmembers to and from Earth’s orbit” over the course of 13 manned missions. At the time of writing, SpaceX’s official X account had not issued any additional comment on the incident or investigation.
The FAA says the goal of the pause is “to further enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective actions to avoid it from happening again.” The invocation of public safety is something of a stretch in this case. The Associated Press reports that there were “no injuries or public damage” from the incident, noting that the booster toppling over was “the first such accident in years.” It remains unclear what the FAA expects to uncover in its investigation that SpaceX itself isn’t alre
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