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SpaceX’s unmatched streak of perfection with the Falcon 9 rocket is over (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/spaceflight

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket suffered an upper stage engine failure and deployed a batch of Starlink internet satellites into a perilously low orbit after launch from California Thursday night, the first blemish on the workhorse launcher's record in more than 300 missions since 2016.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Going into Thursday's mission, the current version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, known as the Falcon 9 Block 5, was indisputably the most reliable launch vehicle in history. Since debuting in May 2018, the Falcon 9 Block 5, which NASA has certified for astronaut flights, never had a mission failure in all of its 297 launches before the ill-fated Starlink 9-3 mission.

Assuming the Starlink satellites can't be saved, and if Thursday night's launch is scored a complete mission failure, the Falcon 9 Block 5 still has a 99.7 percent success rate. This is still an enviable number for any launch company.

99.7% success rate is still pretty damn impressive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

And still unmatched.

What other launch system comes close?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Other than Soyuz I don't think any other rocket has flown enough times to justify the comparison.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I'd include the R-7 family (Soyuz, Molniya, Voskhod, etc.), Proton, and Space Shuttle.

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