The explosion is a setback for SpaceX.
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SpaceX chief Elon Musk said the accident occurred during the fueling of the rocket and originated around the upper-stage oxygen tank.
“The situation at the Cape is being evaluated, and it’s too early to know whether the incident will affect the schedule for upcoming NASA-related SpaceX launches to the International Space Station”.
The explosion destroyed the Falcon 9 rocket that was being re-used after it successfully landed back on Earth, SpaceX has confirmed.
Zuckerberg’s satellite was pretty much destroyed in the Space X explosion, but he has probably anticipated this since he was quick to come up with a Plan B. Facebook CEO says that they still have Aquila, and he is hopeful that this latest development will be that one thing that connects people and gives them opportunity to stay in touch.
A dramatic footage of the explosion is doing rounds on the internet. “Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries”.
By evening the fire was out, but the pad was going to remain off-limits until Friday morning as a precaution, the Air Force said.
Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy at Warwick Business School, said such setbacks were par for the course – and would not affect SpaceX’s stated long-term goals of slashing the cost of space flight through the use of reusable rockets, and eventually colonising Mars.
“I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent”, Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook while on a trip to Africa. Less than a year ago, Zuckerberg said in a post that as a part of his ambitious project Internet.org, Facebook was partnering with Eutsat to launch satellite into orbit that will connect millions of people. Its CEO said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that the loss of the payload would have “a significant impact” on Space Communication.
SpaceX was founded by Musk in 2002, and the Hawthorne, California-based company began launching its Falcon 9 rockets in June 2010.
Here is a bad news for the Facebook users. The last such flight took place in July.
The test was made ahead of a planned Saturday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is next to Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre. SpaceX, one of two companies making deliveries, is also working on a crew capsule to ferry station United States astronauts. “But at the end of the day, I’m confident that our commercial space industry will be very successful”, Nelson said in a statement.
SpaceX had already been working at full tilt to get through a backlog of launch orders that arose after another mishap past year in June.
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The company, which said there were no injuries, was conducting a test firing of its unmanned Falcon rocket when the blast occurred shortly after 9am. The company is also redoing a former shuttle pad at Kennedy for future manned flights for NASA. Boeing also is developing a crew capsule for NASA.
