SpaceX Performs Falcon 9 Static Fire Last Night

SpaceX conducted a static-firing of the nine Merlin engines of a Falcon 9 booster first stage at SLC-40 last night as the company prepares to return to flight after a very rare in-flight failure on July 11.

Interestingly, it was not Falcon 9’s first stage that failed earlier this month, rather, it was in the second stage after the first stage had successfully completed its portion of the mission and had begun returning to land offshore. That landing was successful several minutes later.

For their part, SpaceX has not stated why they performed the static fire, a procedure that was a normal part of Falcon 9 missions until the last 12-18 months, when the company stopped performing the test. There are logical reasons to conduct a static fire — they could be proving in ground systems, or they could be returning to conducting the tests as an additional quality control test in advance of a high-stakes return to flight mission.

The return to flight missions seem to be close. While the FAA has not formally signed off on Falcon 9 returning to flight, SpaceX has prepositioned its drone ships out to see in positions that suggest imminent flights and landings. SpaceX led the Starlink 9-3 investigation and remediation efforts, with FAA oversight.

At the time of this writing, SpaceX has not announced a specific date and time for a target launch, though many of the online space launch scheduling sites are suggesting the dates are set:

While those sites are generally quite accurate, it remains to be seen if they are correct in this case. It is worth noting that no official word of the completion or acceptance of the Starlink 9-3 investigation results has been released, but at the same time, the FAA and SpaceX have been working closely to complete and close the investigation.