It has been over a week since SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the Cape Canaveral launchpad, destroying Facebook’s $200 million satellite in a massive fireball that rattled windows miles away.
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Elon Musk, founder, CEO and CTO of the California-based aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company SpaceX, is still mystified by the Falcon 9 rocket accident, the company’s second in fifteen months.
SpaceX was also gearing up to launch its first Falcon Heavy rocket late this year or early next year.
The setup of the investigation is similar to that of the probe into SpaceX’s explosion previous year, when a rocket hired under a NASA contract headed for the International Space Station but blew up a few minutes into flight.
SpaceX’s chief executive says last week’s launch pad accident is the “most hard and complex failure” in the company’s 14-year history.
Musk stressed that it was not the rocket engine’s fault in a tweet today.
“May come from rocket or something else”, he said.
To aid with the investigation, SpaceX is also calling out to anyone who has a recording of the operation when the explosion occurred to further analyze the incident.
He said “support and advice” from the US space agency NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the US Air Force would be “much appreciated”.
“Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation”, Musk said on Twitter.
Musk did add some specifics from their findings, too, noting that the engines were not active and therefore, there shouldn’t have been any heat source to trigger the blast. A few seconds before the explosion a small pop can be heard about three seconds prior to the sound of the explosion.
The cause of the accident is under investigation.
“It typically takes nine to 12 months for people to return to flight”.
His space venture, SpaceX, launched one rocket after another successfully into space, leaving many awed by his successes. After a Twitter user suggested that a noise sounded like a metal joint popping under stress, perhaps a “weld failing on a strut” or seam bursting, Musk responded, “Most likely true, but we can’t yet find it on any vehicle sensors”.
In addition to the September 19 launch, another Falcon 9 Iridium launch was tentatively scheduled for late December.
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“As for the Launch Pad itself, our teams are now investigating the status of SLC-40”.
