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Falcon 9 suffers upper stage engine failure

The engine on the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 malfunctioned during a launch July 11, causing the potential loss of a batch of Starlink satellites and creating repercussions across the space industry.

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“Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown,” Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, posted on social media two hours after liftoff. “RUD” is SpaceX jargon for “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” or an explosion.

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The anomaly also has implications for human spaceflight. The Falcon 9 was scheduled to launch a Crew Dragon spacecraft at the end of July on the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission, followed in mid-August by another Crew Dragon on the Crew-9 mission to deliver four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-month mission. NASA has relied on SpaceX for accessing the ISS given delays and problems with the development of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.