SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket moments after catastrophic explosion destroys the rocket and Amos-6 Israeli satellite payload at launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, on September 1, 2016. Multiple explosions were felt several miles away and witnesses uploaded photos to social media of the dark smoke billowing from the launch pad.
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Pictures of black smoke rising from the SpaceX launch complex were circulating on Twitter.
SpaceX said both it’s Falcon 9 rocket and payload, Israel’s Amos 6 satellite, were lost in the pre-launch explosion, which the company said was caused by an “anomaly” on the launch pad. “To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often hard and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies”. “We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone”.
SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred shortly after 9 a.m., according to NASA.
It was not clear if anyone was hurt by the blast, and a spokesman for SpaceX did not immediately return a call for comment.
“Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation”, tweeted SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk this afternoon a few hours after the launch pad explosion. SpaceX was believed to be test-firing a rocket which was due to take a satellite into space this weekend.
In December past year, the California-based company successfully landed a Falcon-9 back on Earth after a mission to launch orbiting satellites – a first in rocketry.
The payload included a communications satellite that was meant to provide direct access to the Internet to large and remote swathes of Sub-Saharan Africa, in a program led by Facebook that also includes Eutelsat and Spacecom, the Israeli company that made the AMOS-6 satellite. At the same time, personnel were monitoring the air for any toxic fumes. The other was in June past year, taking out a rocket that had been due to take cargo including Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the International Space Station.
Musk’s Hawthorne, California-based company has shaken up the space industry by introducing cost competition and successfully landing rocket boosters to be reused.
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The explosion is a setback for SpaceX.
