Here’s what happened to Falcon 9’s first and second stage after Hera mission

SpaceX just launched the Hera mission with Falcon 9 rocket but didn’t recover the first and the second stage after completing milestones. Here’s everything you need to know about both stages of this mission.

On October 7, SpaceX launched the European Space Commission’s Hera mission to interplanetary transfer orbit. The liftoff happened from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

At 2:45 minutes, the rocket performed hot staging and separated the first stage to send it back to Earth. However, the company didn’t recover the booster due to the performance enhancements required for this mission.

This was the 23rd and final flight for the first stage booster, which was previously used for Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15, ISI EROS C-3, Korea 425, Maxar 1, ASBM, and 10 Starlink missions.

Second Stage:

On September 28, SpaceX launched a Crew-9 human passenger mission to the International Space Station. The mission was led by a Dragon spacecraft including two astronauts.

After deploying the Spacecraft to the space station’s trajectory, the second stage was disposed of in the ocean as planned but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn.

Afterward, the second stage splashed in the ocean but missed the targeted landing area. This has caused SpaceX to start an investigation and find the root cause of the issue.

Until then, the FAA grounded the launch vehicle.

However, it temporarily allowed the rocket maker to fly Falcon 9 for the Hera mission. Unfortunately, the second stage was not permitted for reentry and recovery.

This denial is caused by the second-stage mishap from the Crew-9 mission. In the aftermath of deployment, SpaceX sent the second stage to interplanetary orbit.

The interplanetary orbit trajectory took the Falcon 9’s upper stage beyond Earth’s gravitational influence and into the space between planets.

SpaceX Falcon 9’s second stage departs to interplanetary orbit (Source – SpaceX)

That’s happened with Falcon 9’s first and second stages during and after the Hera launch mission.

Until the investigation wraps up, the Falcon 9 will remain ground and won’t return to the regular flight schedule.