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This is the second upper stage issue this year. I wonder if they're encountering quality issues as they ramp up the production rate of upper stages, or whether they're simply discovering new (rarer) failure modes as they increase their launch cadence.
More likely it's a bit of both.
Yeah, it feels like they're hitting engineering and/or process corner cases. We also might just be emotionally drawing connections between totally unrelated things when there isn't any actual thread to pull on here.
Could also be due to engineers switching from F9 to SS/SH.
Not surprised there are anomalies. The falcon 9 launches so frequently, there are bound to be some issues.
This is why NASA needs Boeing to get it together with their crew vehicle. Right now there's no way to get new crew up there, until falcon 9 gets cleared again.
We need more than just one company to run away with the launch market.
It was inevitable that they'd have some issues after the crazy success streak, it's just frustrating and feels bad that there have been 3 groundings in quick succession. Hopefully they root cause and fix this new issue just as fast as the last two.
There were/are other companies but they are so horrendously expensive that SpaceX becomes the default choice.