The rocket was poised to launch the Amos-6 communication satellite, which included the capabilities for Facebook to spot-beam broadband for its Internet.org initiative.
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“I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite”, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post while traveling in Africa.
“We remain confident in our commercial partners and firmly stand behind the successful 21st century launch complex that NASA, other federal agencies, and USA commercial companies are building on Florida’s Space Coast”, the space agency said. “We will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided”, he wrote.
According to Elon Musk, the fire started near the upper-stage oxygen tank when the propellant was being loaded in Falcon 9.
The pad at 39A will be able to support Falcon 9 launches, but it won’t be ready until the end of the year, according to SpaceX. They have done some things just in the last few years that are nearly (like) Buck Rogers in recovery of some of the rocket components and the launch schedule.
SpaceX has a second launch site at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, and it has also leased one of the old space shuttle launch pads adjacent to its Cape Canaveral site.
The regime’s Israel Aerospace Industries which had built the satellite issued a statement, saying the “total loss” of the satellite “will have a significant impact on the company”.
The Falcon rocket destroyed on September is the same kind used to launch space station supplies. In spite of strongback tower, assembly hangar, towers with installed light system and Niagara water curtains system appeared to be untouched with explosion so probably work to bring SLC-40 launch pad to fully operational status will not take long. The cause is unknown and has been put down to “an anomaly” by the satellite’s owner, Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. The companies unveiled the agreement last week, but said it was contingent on the successful launch of the satellite and completion of its in-orbit tests. The pad had been cleared of workers before what was supposed to be a routine pre-launch rocket test.
But the explosion destroyed the Israeli communications satellite that the Falcon 9 was due to deliver into orbit tomorrow – drawing a dismayed reaction from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.
A rocket exploded during a launch in June of 2015 on one of its ISS supply missions.
Two NASA astronauts were conducting a spacewalk 250 miles up, outside the International Space Station, when the explosion occurred. You can download a NASA live stream from Cape Canaveral here.
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Dr. Scott Pace, a former NASA official and now the director of the Space Policy Insitute at George Washington University, says that, “SpaceX is running a punishing schedule”, and that there was some level of human error involved in the incident.
