SpaceX halts Falcon 9 missions after 2nd stage issue during most recent launch

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 3, 2026

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SpaceX has halted launches for now of its Falcon 9 rockets after an issue from a Monday mission flown from California.

The Starlink launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base managed to get to space and deploy its payload, but the second stage had issues as it prepared for its normal deorbit burn.

“The vehicle then performed as designed to successfully passivate the stage,” SpaceX stated on its website.

After the upper stage separated from the first stage with no issues, the rocket performed two engine burns normally and its 25 Starlink satellites made it to their intended orbit. The first stage meanwhile, making its 31st flight, had no issue landing as planned on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You stationed in the Pacific.

The second stage normally would be brought down safely over the ocean, but instead of performing a burn to get it into the desired deorbit position, it instead vented its propellant and began to drop in altitude.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks thousands of orbital satellites and rockets, said late Monday the errant stage had been cataloged by the Space Force and should reenter Earth’s atmosphere quickly.

SpaceX took the action to delay any further planned Falcon 9 launches including two from Florida that were slated for this week.

“Teams are reviewing data to determine root cause and corrective actions before returning to flight,” SpaceX stated.

The timeline for that is unclear, but SpaceX did shift its next planned launch of a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, originally targeting launch today, to Feb. 14 and another that was slated for this week to Feb. 16.

Also, the Federal Aviation Administration has not announced any grounding of the rocket, although similar issues from previous launches that involved off-nominal second stage issues had resulted in temporary groundings, sometimes lasting more than two weeks.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 is also the rocket to be used on NASA’s next human spaceflight, the Crew-12 mission that was aiming to launch as early as Feb. 11 to the International Space Station from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40.

As of 11 a.m., SpaceX does still have a pair of California launches still on the clock in the next week, the first for Friday and another next Tuesday.

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