SpaceX Fires Up Falcon 9 for Crew-12 Launch After Brief Grounding

Falcon 9 Roars Back to Life

SpaceX fired up its Falcon 9 rocket in the early hours of Sunday morning at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, successfully completing a critical static fire test that brings NASA's Crew-12 mission one step closer to launch. The nine Merlin 1D engines ignited for roughly ten seconds at Space Launch Complex 40, validating the vehicle's systems ahead of a planned Wednesday liftoff.

The test comes after the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the Falcon 9 to return to flight following a four-day grounding. The rocket was sidelined after an upper-stage malfunction during a Starlink satellite launch on February 2 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. While all twenty-five Starlink satellites reached their intended orbits, the upper stage failed to perform a deorbit burn, causing the rocket body to re-enter the atmosphere uncontrolled over the Indian Ocean.

A Gas Bubble and a Pattern of Problems

SpaceX traced the failure to a gas bubble in a transfer tube that prevented the engine from igniting for its deorbit burn. The FAA accepted the findings and lifted the grounding on February 7. Notably, this was the fourth Falcon 9 upper-stage incident in nineteen months, raising questions about the reliability of the world's most frequently launched orbital rocket.

Medical Emergency Raises the Stakes

Crew-12 carries heightened urgency following the first-ever medical evacuation of astronauts from the International Space Station in January. NASA's Crew-11 returned to Earth on January 15 after a crew member experienced a serious medical condition, leaving only three people aboard the orbital laboratory. NASA moved the Crew-12 launch date forward from February 15 to February 11 to re-stabilise station operations.

The Crew and New Milestones

The mission will carry NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev for an eight-month science mission. The launch will also debut SpaceX's new Landing Zone 40 at Cape Canaveral, a dedicated landing pad built adjacent to the launch site, replacing the older Landing Zones 1 and 2.