SpaceX Falcon 9 booster ‘tipped over’ into the ocean during landing

This was the sight Wednesday evening when a Falcon 9 rocket core stage tried to land on an unmanned ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean but crashed instead. The rocket had nearly completed the touchdown when it tipped over and crashed in the water. It was the first failed recovery by the company of one of its reusable boosters since February 2021, snapping a string of 267 consecutive successful landings of its reusable boosters, according to CBS News.

SpaceX first tweeted about the mission failure at 4:04 a.m. ET this morning, citing that the booster "flipped over after landing" on its 23rd launch. The second stage of the rocket was able to deliver 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, 13 of which boast the company's cellular communications capabilities.

SpaceX had planned to conduct two back-to-back launches this morning but delayed the second launch so it could review data from today's failed landing. The mishap comes after another setback in July when the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded Falcon 9 flights after a second-stage explosion in July.

Prior to this morning's launch, SpaceX scrubbed Polaris Dawn - a mission to fly four astronauts through the Van Allen radiation belts and conduct the first-ever private spacewalk by an astronaut. The company blamed poor weather forecasts for the cancellation.