A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage, launched on February 1 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, experienced an uncontrolled reentry over Europe on February 19. The upper stage, carrying 22 Starlink satellites, failed to perform a controlled deorbit burn due to a liquid oxygen leak. This resulted in debris falling in Poland near Poznań, causing minor damage.
SpaceX confirmed the leak in a statement, explaining that "During the coast phase of this Starlink mission, a small liquid oxygen leak developed, which ultimately drove higher than expected vehicle body rates.” The company passivated the upper stage to prevent further issues.
This is the third such incident involving a Falcon 9 upper stage in a short period. A July 2024 launch experienced a similar leak, preventing a circularization burn and leading to the premature reentry of Starlink satellites. A September launch saw an “off-nominal deorbit burn,” resulting in reentry outside the designated zone. These incidents, along with a booster landing failure, prompted concerns from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.
“When you look at these recent incidents over the last handful of weeks, it does lead one say that it’s apparent that operating safely requires significant attention to detail as hardware ages and the pace of operations increases,” noted Kent Rominger, a former astronaut and panel member.
SpaceX assures that investigations are ongoing: “The teams are actively assessing root cause of the source of the leak and have already implemented mitigations for future flights,” the company stated. Despite the incident, SpaceX has not paused its launch operations.