Falcon 9 engine closeup
A closeup of the nine Merlin engines in the Falcon 9 first stage on a launch in 2020. SpaceX said that on a Feb. 15 launch, hot gas breached an engine cover and caused the engine to shutdown, leading to a failed landing.

A Falcon 9 first stage failed to land after a launch last month because one of its engines shut down during flight after hot gas breached a worn-out cover.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...