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Qantas has been forced to delay flights between Australia and South Africa after the US 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 Tuesday it had postponed several flights between Sydney and Johannesburg over the past few weeks, with the delays lasting between one and six hours.
Ben Holland, head of Qantas’s operations centre, 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.
He added: “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 parts that cannot be reused splash down in remote areas of the ocean. The exact location will depend on the flight, with aircraft and ships told to avoid the re-entry zone.
Qantas’s warning comes as the rate of launches is expected to increase significantly with several new rockets entering the market.
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 New Glenn rocket in the coming days after calling off its maiden flight on Monday due to an icing issue.
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 per cent in Australia after it revealed the delays to flights.
SpaceX has been contacted for comment.