One of the firm’s rockets exploded at its Cape Canaveral launch pad during a routine test this morning.
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There were no injuries.
Cape Canaveral after SpaceX’s September 1 rocket explosion. Past year a Dragon rocket exploded soon after launch, causing delays and problems for the International Space Station among others – those had led the company to increase the rate of its launches in an attempt to clear the backlog.
It was destroyed in the explosion, SpaceX said.
The mishap occurred while the 604-ton rocket was being fueled with a combination of kerosene propellant and liquid oxygen in preparation for a scheduled test fire.
The plan to provide internet access to sub-Saharan Africa is part of Mr Zuckerberg’s Internet.org initiative, which was launched in 2013. At first it sounded like lightning but more explosions followed. Dark smoke could be seen hanging in the sky over the blast site.
The resulting explosion quickly engulfed the spacecraft’s launch pad in flames. Most of the rocket was still standing, althoughthe top third or so was clearly bent over.
The explosion occurred at the Space Launch Complex 40, which is used by SpaceX to launch rockets that carry supplies to the International Space Station, as well as satellites for clients.
Nasa said Kennedy emergency staff were on standby and personnel were monitoring the air for any toxic fumes.
The Air Force stressed there was no threat to publicsafety in the surrounding communities. The initial explosion happened about 9:15 a.m.
While the pad was still burning, it was off-limits.
Two NASA astronauts were conducting a spacewalk 250 miles up, outside the International Space Station, when the explosion occurred.
Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy at Warwick Business School, said such setbacks were par for the course – and would not affect SpaceX’s stated long-term goals of slashing the cost of space flight through the use of reusable rockets, and eventually colonising Mars.
The FalconX payload was an Amos-6 communication satellite developed by Facebook and Eutelsat, which the two companies announced in October 2015.
Regardless of the cause, though, the incident could deal a major blow to SpaceX’s ambitious launch schedule.
It comes just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed just after liftoff, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the ISS.
The space agency is hoping to get astronauts flying from US soil again by the end of next year, hopefully ending its reliance on Russian Federation to fly humans to the Space Station. While the company has not yet achieved a manned space flight, it has secured contracts with NASA to shuttle American astronauts to the ISS in the future.
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NASA later put out a statement, saying the space agency remains confident in its commercial partners, SpaceX included.
