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TapTechNews October 7th news, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on October 6 local time that SpaceX's Falcon 9 main launch vehicle can resume flying and carry out the task of launching the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft from Florida on Monday as planned.

According to TapTechNews, the FAA had previously halted SpaceX's Falcon 9 main launch vehicle launch activity on September 30 because a Falcon 9 had a malfunction when performing a manned flight mission a few days ago, and the second-stage rocket did not land in the target area.

The FAA stated: The FAA has determined that since there is no second-stage reentry for this mission, the primary risk to the public is sufficiently mitigated in the event of an accident similar to that encountered in the Crew-9 mission. The second stage will propel Hera into Earth-escape orbit and therefore will not reenter the atmosphere.

However, the FAA currently only allows the Falcon 9 rocket to carry out the Hera mission, while other launch missions using this rocket are still in a suspended state.

The Hera mission is planned to be launched on October 7, with the main goal of going to the Didymos asteroid and its satellite Dimorphos, to conduct in-depth research on the impact of NASA's DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) in 2022. The DART mission successfully changed the orbit of an asteroid for the first time through kinetic impact, and the Hera mission will conduct detailed observations of the results of this historic impact to provide valuable data for future asteroid defense missions.

Although the launch of the Hera mission has been approved, the approaching launch window faces multiple challenges. Firstly, the recent weather conditions in Florida are not good, and the formation of Hurricane Milton poses a great threat to the launch window. Secondly, NASA's EuropaClipper mission is also planned to be launched in the near future, and the launch windows of the two major missions highly overlap, requiring precise coordination. In addition, the return of the Crew-8 mission of the International Space Station has also been postponed many times due to weather reasons, further increasing the tightness of the launch window.

The ESA and SpaceX are closely monitoring the weather conditions and coordinating with NASA to ensure that the Hera mission can be launched at the most appropriate time.