The Israeli company SpaceCom, the owner of the satellite that was to be ferried into space by the SpaceX Falcon9 rocket until it exploded on the launch pad last week, will receive $205 million in compensation from Israel Aerospace Industries, the builder of the AMOS6 satellite that was lost in the blast according to a filing with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
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The Federal Aviation Administration has sent seven people to Florida to supervise investigation of the disaster, said FAA spokesman Hank Price.
Any sign of rocket malfunction could require changes throughout the SpaceX fleet.
Battered by the loss of its satellite in last week’s SpaceX earth-shattering kaboom, Israeli company Spacecom wants Elon Musk’s launch company to part with cash or a free flight.
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.
Whatever the case may be, the operations of SpaceX may be seriously hampered due to the damage that the incident caused to Launch Complex 40.
The cause of the accident is under investigation.
SpaceX has more than 70 missions on its manifest, worth more than $10 billion, for commercial and government customers.
Thursday’s accident, which occurred as the company was fueling its rocket as part of a routine prelaunch test firing, was the second failed mission for Musk’s space company in 14 months.
The pad is on schedule to be operational in November, SpaceX said. Buildings surrounding the launch pad trembled, while heavy plumes of smoke were released by the Falcon 9.
SpaceX said on Friday that it would shift flights to a second launch site in Florida, which is nearing completion and which was last used to launch NASA’s space shuttles.
Other customers slated for Falcon 9 launches from Florida in 2016 are EchoStar Corp of Englewood, Colorado, South Korea’s KT Sat and NASA. “The pad clearly incurred damage”, the post said, “but the scope has yet to be fully determined”.
In addition, the Israeli company said it expects to receive either $50 million from SpaceX or “have the launch of a future satellite carried out under the existing agreement and with the payments that have [already] been made”.
While Reuters says Spacecom had insurance, neither it nor SpaceX have said how far the cover will go to plugging the holes in their pockets.
SpaceX’s next launch had been scheduled for mid-September from California.
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The explosion happened as SpaceX was filling its Falcon 9 rocket with fuel, and investigators are now trying to determine its cause. In June 2015, a Falcon 9 rocket exploded about two minutes after liftoff from Florida, destroying a load of cargo headed to the International Space Station.
