The trouble appears to have originated somewhere near the liquid oxygen tank in the upper stage.
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“Cause still unknown. More soon”, Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur who helped found Tesla Motors, said on Twitter.
“SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today’s static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedures, the pad was clear and there were no injuries”.
A Space-X rocket that was meant to take the Israeli-made Amos-6 satellite – part-funded by Facebook – into orbit exploded during a launchpad test on Thursday.
Facebook wanted to use the U.S. $195 million satellite to beam free internet to areas without access, like sub-Saharan Africa.
“Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well”, Zuckerberg said, referencing the company’s drone project that’s also created to provide high speed internet.
European satellite operator Eutelsat – Facebook’s partner in the project – said in a statement it was committed to expanding broadband access in Africa despite the loss of the Amos-6.
The SpaceX rocket, Falcon 9, suddenly burst into a series of blasts at 9:07 a.m., spewing out clouds of dark smoke around the Cape Canaveral area.
Both locations will be able to accommodate Falcon 9 rockets, like the one lost Thursday, and the newer, bigger Falcon Heavy rockets.
This would have been the 9th Falcon 9 launch of 2016. And its road to landing a rocket on a barge was littered with crashes and explosions before it start reliably landing them.
“It’s clearly a setback, but how great the setback is and how long the delay, it’s impossible to know until there is more information available”, said Logsdon.
Pictures of the launch site after the explosion showed the top portion of a launch pad tower, which is used to raise the rocket and support it vertically, had canted over.
“We’re confident in SpaceX and that they will find and resolve any issues causing this incident, and we will be ready to go once that occurs”, Iridium Communications Inc said in a statement.
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Musk has had to face problems in his quest to make space travel reachable and affordable, raising doubts on whether or not he is moving too quickly in his investments, which include auto company Tesla and electric utility company SolarCity. SpaceX has been testing the escape pod as a safety feature for its crew-carrying missions, like the one it plans to Mars.
