After weather delaying the launch of the private Polaris Dawn space mission until at least Aug. 30, SpaceX went ahead with two Starlink satellite launches via Falcon 9 rockets Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, the first Falcon 9 rocket launch resulted in a first-stage booster toppling over into the Atlantic Ocean and catching fire. While the rest of the rocket made it to space and deployed 21 satellites, a planned second launch in California was scrapped so that the SpaceX team could study the booster mishap.
Falcon 9 boosters are meant to be recoverable. With the incident Wednesday morning, SpaceX broke its streak of 267 successful booster landings since 2021.
So far, SpaceX has not said whether the failure of the first-stage booster will further delay or affect the Polaris Dawn mission, which also is using a Falcon rocket.
Polaris Dawn, which will send four private astronauts into orbit for a planned five-day mission, will be commanded by Shift4 Payments entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who previously flew into space on the 2001 Inspiration4 private mission. The new mission was set to launch Monday, Aug. 26, but was pushed back on consecutive days due to unfavorable weather conditions and to get "a closer look at a ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical," the company said on the X social media network earlier in the week.
In addition to news coverage, you can find updates on Polaris Dawn on the mission's website, X, Instagram and Flickr, where photos from the mission will be posted.