That rocket unmanned but carrying critical supplies, food, a space suit, the third such disaster in eight months and tonight it’s raising a new question, could the astronauts on board the global space station be forced to evacuate?
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The failed launch was the seventh of 12 supply missions to the ISS under a $1.6 billion contract between SpaceX and NASA.
“SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success”.
Fortunately, NASA reports that the three crew members aboard the ISS have plenty of supplies to last them several months. We will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened, fix the problem and return to flight. Attached to the Dragon capsule and armed with over 4,000 pounds of supplies, the rocket was destined for the worldwide Space Station, but was destroyed just minutes after being launched.
SpaceX was also planning on demonstration the Falcon Heavy rocket later this year but it appears that this incident may force the company to alter that demonstration as well.
Teams of engineers have been deployed to review thousands of sources of data transmitted by the rocket before the explosion occurred, including video, company officials said.
“During the launch, prior to the first stage shut-off, the Falcon 9 experienced an anomaly and catastrophic failure”.
Data stopped flowing from the Falcon 9 rocket around 2 minutes and 19 seconds, he said.
For 148 seconds, it seemed that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was on its way to fulfilling its mission: to re-supply the global Space Mission with food, water and other necessities that would only last them till October of this year. Earlier in October, students enrolled in the science, technology, engineering and math program for schools in Knox County, Tennessee saw the Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft blew up on the launch pad itself.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that the mishap will have an impact on the launch schedule for the Jason-3 satellite, which is created to measure global sea surface height. However, to their dismay, the experiment did not reach the ISS.
“Space is still hard, and challenges like these serve as a reminder that space launch remains a very high-risk endeavor requiring unwavering perseverance and utmost dedication among the select few who strive to one day make it commonplace, reliable, and affordable”, he said.
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“With Russian troops still occupying Ukraine and killing its citizens, I will continue to oppose language now in the House defense authorization bill, which guarantees that $300 million of taxpayer money will go to Vladimir Putin, his cronies, and the Russian military industrial base”, McCain said.
