Elon Musk isn’t the only tech titan mourning the fiery destruction on Thursday of one of his SpaceX rockets. SpaceX was leasing the pad from the Air Force for its Falcon launches.
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According to authorities, the explosion occurred at approximately 9:07 am at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40. The company has launched 25 rockets from the site since 2010.
The explosion is a setback for SpaceX.
A statement released by SpaceX says the incident happened during the loading of the rocket but the cause is still unknown.
Next was due to be the November launch of a SpaceX Dragon to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
Facebook is in a partnership with French satellite firm Eutelsat Communications.
Eutelsat said the explosion’s impact on revenues is estimated at around 5 million euros (5.6 million US dollars) in fiscal year 2016-17, 15 million euros (16.8 million dollars) in 2017-18 and 25 to 30 million euros (28 to 33.6 million dollars) in 2018-19.
The Chinese conglomerate Beijing Xinwei Technology Group was set to purchase Spacecom following the successful launch of AMOS-6, SpaceNews reported August 24. The satellite was built by Israeli Aerospace Industries.
According to SpaceNews, Spacecom shares dropped over nine percent in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange today, picking up only slightly after-hours. Its shares closed down 8.9 percent at 38.95 shekels.
“There is no threat to general public from catastrophic abort during static test fire at SpaceX launch pad”, a spokesman for the Brevard County Emergency Management Office said.
“The rocket is now in flames”, Robin Seemangal, a reporter with the Observer, tweeted.
“We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad”, Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source.
“I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite, “Zuckerberg wrote in a post while traveling in Africa”.
Facebook had arranged to use the satellite once it was in orbit to provide web connectivity to parts of the world that have little if any internet. That explosion claimed another high-tech victim: Microsoft HoloLens headsets destined for the International Space Station. SpaceX is one of two companies that transport cargo to the orbiting laboratory, which flies 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. NASA remains confident in its commercial partners, including SpaceX, she said.
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While there were no injuries involved, the AMOS-6 satellite which was onboard, got destroyed along with the rocket.
