SpaceX back to Falcon 9 launches as Musk eyes 'self-growing' Moon city
- Reference: 1770646982
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/09/spacex_resumes_falcon_9/
- Source link:
The second stage issue, which resulted in a failed deorbit burn and subsequent reentry over the Southern Indian Ocean, [1]was due to "an off-nominal condition caused by a failed ignition due to a gas bubble in the transfer tube ahead of the planned deorbit burn."
Launches of the workhorse rocket were halted while an investigation took place. Shortly after, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told The Register : "The FAA will oversee every step of the investigation, approve the final report and any corrective actions."
[2]
A few days later, the FAA gave SpaceX the nod to resume launches and said in a statement: "The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation. The final mishap report cites the probable root cause as the Falcon 9 stage 2 engine's failure to ignite before the deorbit burn.
[3]
[4]
"SpaceX identified technical and organizational preventative measures to avoid a reoccurrence of the event. The Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to flight."
So all good? Kind of. On February 7, at 2058 UTC, SpaceX launched another 25 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg. The successful mission cleared the path for the upcoming Crew-12 mission, but far greater challenges lie ahead.
[5]
These were articulated in a [6]post on X (formerly Twitter) by Musk, who wrote: "SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years."
[7]SpaceX wants to fill Earth orbit with a million datacenter satellites
[8]SpaceX halts Falcon 9 flights after second stage anomaly
[9]Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun
[10]SpaceX loses debut V3 Super Heavy in ground test mishap
The word "potentially" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. SpaceX was [11]awarded a contract in 2021 to build a lunar lander variant of its Starship rocket. However, a few short years later, NASA admitted that the company was behind schedule and [12]reopened the competition for the landing contract, with a view to getting boots on the Moon's surface by the end of Trump's second term in 2029.
SpaceX [13]responded with a progress update that was heavy on renders and mock-ups but light on actual details.
At the end of January, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin announced it would pause its New Shepard flights and shift resources to accelerate the development of the company's lunar capabilities. In 2023, Blue Origin [14]unveiled a cargo version mock-up of its Blue Moon lunar lander. The prospect of the company accelerating the development of the human-rated model cannot be far from Musk's thoughts.
However, given that SpaceX has yet to put a Starship into orbit (though it might finally do so this year), Musk's "less than 10 years" is optimistic, even if the funding spigot is turned on. ®
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[1] https://www.spacex.com/launches/sl-17-32
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aYoStnq8HkUz349Gi50hCgAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYoStnq8HkUz349Gi50hCgAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aYoStnq8HkUz349Gi50hCgAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYoStnq8HkUz349Gi50hCgAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2020640004628742577
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/05/spacex_1m_satellite_datacenter/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/spacex_halts_falcon_9_flights/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/03/musk_spacex_xai_merge_hallucination_burning_man/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/21/spacex_super_heavy_mishap/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/16/nasa_spacex_moon/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/21/spacex_is_behind_schedule_so/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/16/spacexs_starship_two_down_a/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/30/blue_origin_lunar_lander/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "potentially" is doing a lot of heavy lifting
I think that speech has already been broadcast: [1]Nixon mourns how Armstrong and Aldrin never made it home
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/20/deepfake_apollo_11/
Will it progress like Full Self Driving did?
"In ten years time I firmly believe we will see a self-growing city on Mars The Moon spare land next to SpaceX's launchpad ... I firmly believe we will see a scale model made of Lego on a large table in my office."
Moon
Are there any wild parties on the Moon the Musk is after?
Didn't he just put all his eggs into a different basket
The basket case idea of data centres in orbit ?
Re: Didn't he just put all his eggs into a different basket
The new basket is the upcoming SpaceX IPO. The half built giga factory in Boca Chica is massively oversized for Starlink. The size made sense for Mars but that adds no value to potential shareholders. A giga factory dependent pipe dream is required to maximise the share value at the IPO. Here it is without pointing at the flies in the ointment:
A huge AI training facility in Lunar orbit.
AI training requires lots of internal bandwidth but not so much to the rest of the world. Fully trained AIs can be downloaded to Earth and run there on smaller data centres. The surface of the Moon has an inconvenient 14 day day/night cycle. This can be avoided by going to Lunar orbit. Data centres in Earth orbit trash astronomy. They risk making access to space difficult with a Kessler cascade. They will eventually fall back to Earth and pollute the upper atmosphere. All these problems disappear by going to Lunar orbit. Launching giant data centres from Earth is impractical. Aircraft and rockets already contest the sky near Florida with only a couple of launches per week. LEO data centres require launches every hour. Launching data centres from the Moon does not conflict with air traffic. The Moon has plenty of silicon. Launching from the Moon does not require rockets so the tyranny of the rocket equation can be eliminated. Rockets are huge because the have to take their own propellant with them. A mass driver on the Moon only needs to launch payload and is completely re-usable.
Now for a big bottle of flies:
Radiation. Lunar dust. AI is a bubble inflated to busting point. Non-existent local workforce. Building a chip factory on Earth is extremely difficult. Multiply that by at least 1000 for the Moon. A Kessler cascade could make access to the Moon difficult. Plenty more reasons I have not thought of yet.
A data centre in Lunar orbit launched from the Moon may well be physically possible but the technology is about as distant as fusion power. The economics are terrible now, may improve but the economics of data centres on Earth are not static either. The good news is that huge problems have never got in the way of investors showering Musk with money before.
More IPO Fallout
Musk must be really desperate resorting to taking SpaceX public after all the SEC regulatory trouble he's gotten in over the years with Tesla making careless promises and statements. With SpaceX being private he could make all sorts of grandiose pronouncements. Now that it's going public he has to jettison all his Mars BS as there will be regulatory ramifications.
Wouldn't it be fun ...
if NASA achieved Boots On The Moon without any SpaceX involvement.
Mars would take 20+ years? I thought it was -3 years and counting.
"potentially" is doing a lot of heavy lifting
I suspect there are more than a few gas bubbles in Space Karen's transfer tube between his ketime afflcted imagination and reality which are likely to suffer the same " failure to ignite before the deorbit burn. "
It is not inconceivable for the US to be able to place more astronauts on the Moon during the next decade but with the ongoing shambles of the current Administration they are just as likely to also reserve the dubious honour of the first graves on the Moon.