As most regular readers are likely aware, I'm something of a fanboy when it comes to SpaceX and Elon Musk's rocket program. (I'm not so much of a fan of the way he's cluttering up low-earth orbit with Starlink satellites, but that's a story for another day.) I've always enjoyed watching the launches and rocket recoveries. Musk has gotten so good at it, particularly when it comes to his Falcon series of rockets that the process almost seems routine at this point, despite the immensely complicated challenges such activities pose. That's why it came as something of a surprise to learn that his latest Starlink launch had gone off smoothly, but when the time came to recover the rocket's booster, something clearly went seriously amiss. Moments after landing, flames shot out of the base of the booster at which point it fell onto its side and exploded in a rather spectacular fashion. This led to the FAA declaring a temporary pause in SpaceX launches until a safety investigation can be conducted. (Space News)

Falcon 9 launches are temporarily on hold as the Federal Aviation Administration looks into any public safety implications of the failed landing of a booster early Aug. 28.

In an Aug. 28 statement, the FAA stated it was aware of the incident earlier that day when a Falcon 9 booster landed on a droneship on an otherwise successful launch of 21 Starlink satellites. Upon landing, flames erupted from the booster’s base and the vehicle tipped over seconds later.

While the incident caused no injuries or damage beyond the loss of the booster, the FAA noted in its statement that it is requiring an investigation. That will, for the time being, prevent SpaceX from conducting additional launches.

You can watch the landing of the booster on Musk's drone ship and the subsequent explosion below. The clip is less than twenty seconds long.

Particularly for laymen like myself, it's tough to even speculate what went wrong there based on the video. The booster did appear as if it might not have been perfectly vertical when it touched down, but if not, they weren't off by much. If you freeze the clip at the nine-second mark, it almost appears as if the stabilizing leg to the right of the screen is collapsing. That might explain why it fell. As for the explosion, those reusable rockets don't burn up 100% of their fuel on each flight. There is always some left over and the rocket is very hot at that point, so if it tips over and hits the deck, we probably shouldn't be shocked if it blows up.

But this is yet another reminder of how many challenges Musk had to overcome and all of the new concepts he had to pioneer to get the Falcon program up and running. It's hard enough on the best of days to send a rocket into orbit, bring it back down, and land it anywhere. But Musk lands the majority of his on what basically amounts to a raft in the middle of the ocean. And it's not even a particularly large raft. We should also keep in mind that these rockets are used over and over again under very grueling conditions. Some boosters have made more than 20 flights into space. (One booster managed 23 launches.) Everything wears out eventually, so perhaps this was simply this booster's last moment in the spotlight.

It happened at a rather unfortunate time, however. This may be making the astronauts on Musk's upcoming Polaris Mission launch a little nervous. SpaceX is preparing to send up the first civilian astronauts to perform a spacewalk, but the Polaris Mission was already put on hold. This is the second delay of the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission carrying four civilian "space tourists." This one is being blamed on uncertainty about the weather and the conditions the ship might encounter when it reenters the planet's atmosphere. But a previously scheduled launch was scrubbed when a helium leak was detected onboard Polaris. That's the same problem that Boeing had with the Starliner before it fell to pieces when trying to dock with the ISS. If I was one of those civilian astronauts I would be glancing about in a nervous fashion about now. Let's all say a prayer and hope that they pull this off without a hitch on the next attempt.