The second stage of Falcon 9 burning up upon re-entry above my home in the Puget Sound.ĭid any pieces make it to the ground? It's possible that some of the more dense components of the rocket, such as pieces of the Merlin engine or composite overwrap pressure vessels, withstood re-entry and landed on the ground in the Rockies. It is likely that the second stage completely broke apart over the Rocky Mountains near the United States and Canadian border. This was, however, simply the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage-which weighs about four metric tons unfueled-breaking apart in the atmosphere and burning up. Videos shared on various social media networks showed what appeared to be an invasion by an alien armada. On Thursday night, three weeks after launching, this second stage re-entered the thicker part of Earth's atmosphere and, in doing so over populated areas, provided some spectacular views for the Portland and Washington state region. This high above the Earth, it was still susceptible to drag from the thin wisps of our planet's upper atmosphere. In this case, the Falcon 9 upper stage still comes back because when it released the Starlink satellites, the vehicle was orbiting Earth at an average altitude of about 250 km.
So the propellant was vented into space, and the second stage was set to make a more uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere. However, there was not enough propellant after this launch to ignite the Merlin engine and complete the burn. just caught this flying over my home in SW Portland. Typically, within an orbit or two of launching, the Falcon 9 rocket's Merlin vacuum engine will relight and nudge the second stage downward so that it harmlessly re-enters Earth's atmosphere into the Pacific Ocean. The entire mission was nominal, except for a problem with the rocket's second stage. It was the first of four such missions flown this month by SpaceX. A little more than three weeks ago, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida's Kennedy Space Center carrying a payload of 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.
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