Qantas delays flights to avoid SpaceX rocket parts

Qantas said it postponed several flights between Sydney and Johannesburg over the past few weeks. Photo / 123RF

Qantas has been forced to delay flights between Australia and South Africa after the United States Government warned the airline about the risk of SpaceX rocket parts re-entering the atmosphere in the southern Indian Ocean.

Australia’s flag carrier said on Wednesday it had postponed several flights between Sydney and Johannesburg over the past few weeks, with the delays lasting between one and six hours.

Qantas operations centre head Ben Holland said the timings of recent re-entries into the atmosphere of parts of rockets owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX had “moved around at late notice”, forcing the airline to delay some flights shortly before their scheduled departure.

“We’re in contact with SpaceX to see if they can refine the areas and time windows for the rocket re-entries to minimise future disruption to our passengers on the route.”

Few airlines fly across the remote southern Indian Ocean, but Qantas has operated the South Africa-to-Australia service — known as the Wallaby route — since the early 1950s.

It is a route regularly used by tourists, South Africans living in Australia and mining industry executives.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the US regulator, licenses all commercial space rocket launches and re-entries within the US, as well as those conducted by American companies abroad.

Rocket launches are typically carefully calibrated to ensure rocket parts returning to Earth splash down in remote ocean areas.

The exact location will depend on the flight, with aircraft and ships told to avoid the re-entry zone.

The Qantas incidents are not the first time flights have been affected by debris from space flights, although these situations are rare.

In 2022, more than 300 flights were delayed when Spanish airspace was partially closed amid concerns about the uncontrolled re-entry of remains of a Chinese rocket.

The development of bigger, reusable rockets — pioneered by SpaceX — could exacerbate the problem for commercial airlines in the short to medium term, said Maxime Puteaux at space consultancy Novaspace.

Airspace could be closed to commercial air traffic for longer than necessary while regulators developed tools to integrate launch and re-entry with aviation in the management of airspace.

“We are still in a learning process for controlled re-entry,” he said. “It is a 10 to 5 year learning curve.”

Nonetheless, the rate of rocket launches is expected to increase significantly with several new spacecraft entering the market to feed rising demand for satellite services from space, such as broadband and Earth observation.

Last year, rocket launch attempts hit a record 259 globally, with 256 proving successful.

SpaceX accounted for more than half that number and is expected to increase the pace of launches this year as it brings its giant Starship rocket into service.

This week, it is expected to make its seventh test flight although the date has previously been pushed back.

Rival rocket company Blue Origin, backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is also set to fly its reusable New Glenn rocket in the coming days after calling off its maiden flight on Tuesday due to an icing issue.

Most rockets use sections called stages, which carry their own fuel and engines.

As the fuel burns up, the stage is separated from the rocket and it either burns up on re-entry into the atmosphere or is guided to splash down in a remote part of the ocean.

In reusable rockets, the booster section returns to Earth in a controlled re-entry to land on an ocean barge or land-based launch pad.

This has helped to radically cut the costs of launching to space, accelerating demand for services from space.

But there have been occasions when parts have fallen back to Earth outside the controlled zones.

Last year, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 was grounded after three incidents that involved parts re-entering outside the controlled splashdown zone.

Qantas shares dropped 2% in Australia after it revealed the delays to flights.

SpaceX has been contacted for comment.

© Financial Times