On Wednesday, the US FAA issued a statement that the Falcon 9 booster rocket has been grounded pending an official investigation of the crash incident. The launch of the latest Starlink satellite constellation took off without difficulties from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 3:48 am EDT (07:48 GMT). The booster achieved successful second stage separation and the payload reached its proper orbit.

The problem came 8.5 minutes into the mission, just as the Falcon 9 first stage, tail number B1062, made a powered descent to the landing barge "A Shortfall of Gravitas." The rocket had already made 23 successful landings, but this time something went wrong. Immediately after touching down on the deck of the barge, there was a flash from the Merlin engines and the vehicle toppled over before being engulfed in flames.

The failure came after a string of 267 successful landings by SpaceX, not counting boosters that were deliberately expended. The last accidental loss before this was on February 16, 2021.

What's remarkable about this mishap is how it shows how fast the field of rocketry has progressed in a very short time. Eight years ago, just being able to land a rocket at all to recycle it for later flights was a nine-day wonder. The mere fact that it happened at all made headlines and the crashes and failures were expected.

Now the FAA is treating Wednesday's crash as if it was never supposed to happen. Under US regulations, any flight that ends in a mishap instead of as according to the filed flight plan must be investigated as a matter of course. As far as the agency is concerned, the loss of a space rocket is the same as the undercarriage buckling under a one-seater prop plane during a botched landing.