Pieces of the rocket could be seen falling into the ocean. The current three-person crew-which will increase to six when the next expedition launches from Kazakhstan in July-is in no danger of running out of essential supplies like food, water and breathable oxygen. He also assured his listeners that “today’s launch attempt won’t deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program”. Two minutes and 19 seconds into the flight, however, disaster struck. Everything seemed to be going well until the rocket went supersonic.
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On Sunday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX saw another rocket explode-this time only minutes after launch.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) described it as a “mishap”.
“This was a blow to us”.
“I imagine a number of months or so”, Shotwell said at a news conference.
NASA is cautious about having its astronauts in space with less than three months of supplies.
Sunday’s loss marked SpaceX’s first failed mission to the space station, and extended a string of setbacks for space station resupply. Earlier this year, the Russian government lost control of a Progress cargo vessel shortly after launch, causing it to fall back to Earth.
The Falcon9 rocket was carrying two and a half tons of supplies, including a docking adaptor for the “the next generation of crewed spacecraft”. He is the current commander of the worldwide Space Station and he is in the middle of completing his mission to spend a year in space.
For a group of students from North Charleston, S.C., the failure was a second dose of disappointment. They high fived each other after the rocket soared off the pad.
“Sadly failed”, Kelly said via Twitter. “Space is hard”, he wrote. The botched launching was the seventh contract of the company under NASA worth $1.6 billion for 15 cargo delivers on the global Space station.
Moments later, a SpaceX commentator said the video link from the vehicle had been lost.
“Everyone watched for the stage separation, as this first stage is a new reusable stage that was supposed to invert and land on a platform out at sea“.
The countdown had proceeded without worries about weather, and the 208-foot-tall rocket lifted off at 10:21 a.m. EDT. “They will figure this out”.
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“Yeah, not the best birthday”, Musk tweeted.
