Case in point: the September 1 explosion of one of its rockets on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. This is a major setback in the plans Musk has, and for the investors who already spent money in SpaceX’s space exploration projects. The company was grounded for six months for the first rocket explosion.
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Though SpaceX has suffered a devastating loss with this explosion, it has successfully returned the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket to Earth as part of its reusable rocket initiative, aimed at making space travel cheaper and therefore more accessible.
In a series of tweets this morning, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk provided a brief update of the company’s investigation into the explosion last week that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and the Amos-6 communications satellite during a pre-launch test. “Material may be useful for investigation”.
Musk stressed that it was not the rocket engine’s fault in a tweet today. “Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source“. One clue he said investigators were exploring was a “bang sound” that may have come from the “rocket or something else” seconds before the rocket blew up while standing on its launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA said SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when a blast occurred. “Please email any recordings of the event to [email protected]”, he wrote.
Some Twitter users asked Musk whether sabotage could have been to blame or whether something could have hit the rocket.
A week after a Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated in a fireball on its Cape Canaveral launch pad, SpaceX has come to no quick conclusions about what sparked the inferno.
Now, Elon Musk is asking the people of the internet for help in finding answers on what he’s called the “most hard and complex failure” the firm has ever experienced.
Musk replied: “Most likely true, but we can’t yet find it on any vehicle sensors”. The company has said the second launch facility, which also is meant to handle SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy variant, is expected to be ready by November.
SpaceX operates a third pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., for payloads that require polar orbits, and is building another complex in Texas for commercial launchings. “The most hard situation is when things remain vague”.
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Tony Bruno, president and CEO of rival aerospace firm United Launch Alliance (ULA), told Reuters yesterday that it could take as long as a year for SpaceX to return to regular launches.
