SpaceX Falcon Launch Raketa carrier

2025: Rocket top stage crash into Europe due to fuel leak

On February 19, 2025, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which was previously launched by SpaceX, fell on Europe. The cause of the incident was a fuel leak.

We are talking about the SpaceX Starlink Group 11-4 mission. The launch of the Falcon 9 carrier took place on February 1, 2025 from the Vandenberg Space Base in California. 22 Starlink satellites acted as payloads.

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Фото: news.satnews.com

The traditional Falcon 9 launch scheme involves returning the first stage to the ground, while the second (upper) stage continues the flight, bringing the payload into a given orbit. After that, the second stage should make a maneuver to independently disorbit: during this process, it burns out in dense layers of the atmosphere over the ocean.

However, during the SpaceX Starlink Group 11-4 mission, according to the tracking systems of the US Space Force, the second stage did not fulfill the planned maneuver and remained in orbit. Subsequently, there was an uncontrolled descent from orbit, and the stage collapsed into the atmosphere over Europe. Debris from the stage, including high-pressure composite tanks, fell in Poland, near the city of Poznań. The damage from the fall of space debris turned out to be insignificant: for example, one of the local farmers reported the formation of a funnel in his field.

SpaceX said in an official statement that the mission "suffered a small leak of liquid oxygen," which ultimately prevented a controlled disorbitation. The company works closely with the relevant departments of Poland to eliminate the consequences of the fall of rocket debris. It is emphasized that these fragments do not contain toxic materials, and therefore do not pose a threat. Before the fall, SpaceX passivated the upper stage, thereby avoiding fire upon re-entry.^[1]

2022: Rocket launch as part of US Space Force secret mission

On November 1, 2022, the American Falcon Heavy rocket launched into orbit as part of a secret mission of the US Space Force, the SpaceX carrier development company said.

SpaceX has launched Falcon Heavy for the first time in 3 years.

About a dozen launches of this large rocket are planned for the next few years, with most flights destined for the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA science missions.

2018

SpaceX launches rocket into space with Tesla car

The launch took place on February 7, 2018 at 23:45 Moscow time from the Kennedy Space Center cosmodrome in Florida. On board the Falcon Heavy is a capsule with Elon Musk's personal car - a red Tesla Roadster. In his stereo system. according to Musk, David Bowie's song "Space Oddity" is played. It is planned that the car will rotate around the sun, from time to time approaching Earth and Mars.

Falcon Heavy on launch pad

The American company SpaceX, specializing in the production of space technology, published on its Instagram^[2]by^[3] two.views of the super-heavy launch vehicle Falcon Heavy on the launch pad at Cape Ditch.

The Falcon Heavy is a superheavy launch vehicle developed from the Falcon 9 and has the first three stages of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust. The rocket will be able to launch up to 63.8 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, and will deliver up to 16.8 tons to Mars. In December, it became known that Falcon Heavy will be launched in January 2018, and the personal car of the founder of the company Elon Musk Tesla Roadster will act as a payload.

2017

BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) Transportation System Project

Elon Musk presented a project for the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) transport system in September 2017, according to The Washington Post. Speaking at the IAC2017 (International Astronautical Congress) event, the head of SpaceX jokingly called this Big Fucking Rocket carrier^[4].

The BFR includes a reusable superheavy rocket and a manned craft that seats about a hundred people. The universal system is designed for near-Earth flights, in particular, to the ISS, launches of satellites and other spacecraft, as well as missions to the moon and Mars.

Ultimately, the BFR must replace all operating and building SpaceX rockets and ships.

The BFR rocket is capable of launching 150 tons into a low reference orbit; 31 Raptor engines are planned to be installed on the first stage of the carrier. Almost simultaneously with Musk's performance on Instagram of the company he heads, a video of the fire tests of this unit appeared.

Musk proposed using BFR to deliver people within the Earth, the carrier's journey between any two points on the planet will take less than an hour, in particular, a flight from New York to Shanghai is possible in 39 minutes, and to London - in 29. The maximum speed of the BFR ship will be 29 thousand kilometers per hour, the ticket price, Musk believes, should be comparable to that for the popular Airbus A380.

With the help of BFR, the head of SpaceX plans to roll out the construction of a lunar base and a Martian city. Musk sees the colonization of Mars as the main goal for the company. According to the plans announced by businessmen, in 2022 SpaceX with the help of BFR will send two trucks to Mars, while in 2024 four missions are expected at once - two cargo and two manned.