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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

More likely it's a bit of both.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

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.

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

Could also be due to engineers switching from F9 to SS/SH.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] Trollception 3 points 3 months ago

There were/are other companies but they are so horrendously expensive that SpaceX becomes the default choice.