Falcon rocket booster 9, which successfully landed on the offshore platform 2 March, was lost to fire, caused by a fuel leak during the flight. The details of the incident were disclosed by SpaceX representatives during two briefings 7 March, dedicated to future NASA launches.
What happened?
Falcon 9 carried out a mission to launch another group of satellites into orbit Starlink Group 12-20. As reported Julianne Shaiman, director of scientific missions of NASA, SpaceX's problems began during takeoff. About on the 85th second of the flight in one of the nine engines it happened fuel leak.
Despite this, the rocket completed the task without any problems, because there was no oxygen for ignition in the engine compartment at that time. However, after landing, the situation changed: through 45 seconds after landing oxygen got into the compartment, that caused the ignition. Fire damaged bearing supports landing mechanism, why rocket overturned and was destroyed.
Reaction from SpaceX and NASA
The investigation into the cause of the accident continues, but, as noted Bill Gerstenmeier, SpaceX's vice president of flight reliability, there was a fire localized in one engine compartment. This means, that even if the ignition happened in flight, the rocket could still continue the mission.
In addition to internal analysis, an independent inspection was also carried out by NASA specialists, in particular NASA launch program (LSP). According to the words Dentona Gibson, launch manager from NASA, they did their own investigation, to make sure, that the situation does not pose a threat to future missions.
How will this affect future launches??
Problems with the Falcon accelerator 9 did not affect the preparation of other missions, however, NASA and SpaceX decided to test the system further. Before starting the mission Crew-10 (scheduled for 12 March) 9 March will conduct a test launch of the Falcon 9 (static fire), to check, are there any similar fuel leaks.
Source: https://spacenews.com/fuel-leak-blamed-for-falcon-9-booster-loss-after-landing/