HOUSTON  -  SpaceX’s stalwart Falcon 9 rocket, which powers satellite launches as well as trips to orbit for as­tronauts, experienced a rare and troubling failure Saturday night as it attempted to haul a batch of internet satellites to orbit. The ordeal has prompt­ed federal regulators to ground the rocket, which has become a cornerstone of the United States and global launch industries over the past decade. The incident marks the first time a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — which also plays a critical part in NASA’s human spaceflight program — has failed in nearly a decade. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said Friday morning that it is requiring an investiga­tion into the incident, though no “public injuries or public property damage have been reported.” The FAA, which routinely launches such investiga­tions in the name of public safety after rockets or spacecraft fail, noted that it will be involved in is­suing corrective actions for SpaceX to take, as well as determining when the Falcon 9 might return to the launchpad. If the Falcon 9 is out of commission for an extended period of time, it could mean roll­ing setbacks for NASA’s astronaut launch schedule, SpaceX’s orbital space tourism efforts, the com­pany’s satellite internet service, and the global commercial satellite industry, which relies heavily on the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 at issue took flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday evening, around 10:30 p.m. local time. The launch vehicle carried 20 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink network, which already operates via more than 6,000 satellites that have been deployed via dozens of launches, according to astrophyiscist Jonathan McDowell. Most of those flights have gone off without any obvious issues, but Thursday was different. The first leg of the mission appeared to proceed smoothly, with the Falcon 9 using its first-stage booster — the bottommost part of the rocket with nine engines that provide the initial burst of power at liftoff — to propel itself toward space. That booster then detached and landed safely back on a sea-faring platform so that SpaceX can refurbish and use it again. But the second stage of the rocket, which is designed to fire up after the first stage falls away and power the satellites to their final destination in orbit, failed abruptly. The cause was not immediately clear. As a result, the Starlink satellites were de­ployed into a lower than intended orbit,” accord­ing to a statement from SpaceX. Later on Friday, SpaceX added in a statement that the upper stage of the rocket experienced a “liquid oxygen leak.” Liquid oxygen, or LOX, is used as an oxidizer for the fuel aboard Falcon 9. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, added in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the the second stage did not just fail — it expe­rienced what his company tends to call an “RUD” or “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” which typically refers to an explosion.