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Elon Musk takes to Twitter in hunt for SpaceX explosion clues

“Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation”.

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The rocket, which exploded on September 1, destroyed a satellite Facebook was planning to use to offer Internet access in parts of Africa.

In the early hours of Friday morning, or shortly after midnight on the West Coast, Musk took to Twitter to post a series of updates about the ongoing investigation, and called the accident “the most hard and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years”. The explosion occurred not during launch, but during a prelaunch test while the Falcon 9 rocket was undergoing a “routine filling operation”, Musk tweeted, adding the important caveat that “Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source”.

Musk, who is also the C.E.O. of Tesla Motors, tweeted that the explosion began at the upper stage of the oxygen tank, but beyond that, details are limited. He said a focus of the probe was “trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off”. He also thanked NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Air Force for their help during the investigation.

Facebook is in a partnership with French satellite firm Eutelsat Communications. While there were no injuries, the rocket and the Amos-6 satellite it was carrying were destroyed, and the launch pad was severely damaged. It has yet to carry any people into space, though it has won a contract from NASA to carry American astronauts to the space station in the future. Asked on Twitter whether it was possible that a foreign object had struck the rocket, Musk replied: “We have not ruled that out”.

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Chris Isidore contributed reporting.

Smoke rises from a SpaceX launch site Thursday Sept. 1 2016 at Cape Canaveral Fla