Explosion Rocks SpaceX Launch Site In Florida During Test

An explosion has rocked the SpaceX launch site in Florida.

SpaceX regularly conducts a “static fire” test a couple days before launch, during which the rocket remains held to the pad while the engines fire up for a few seconds.

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According to Loizos Heracleous from Warwick Business School who previously cooperated with Nasa, the accident – while unfortunate – is part of SpaceX’s learning journey that will hopefully lead to safer and more reliable rockets in future when the company starts ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station.

An explosion rocked the launch site of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral in the USA state of Florida on Thursday, and black smoke could be seen rising into the air from the facility, U.S. media reports said.

The rocket was carrying a six-ton, $200 million Israeli satellite, the AMOS-6, which was to provide broadband internet to the Middle East, Europe and parts of Africa. No further details have yet been made available. The explosion occurred during a test firing.

SpaceX is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit, and to dock a spacecraft – Dragon – to the International Space Station.

“A cloud of dark smoke filled the overcast sky”, the AP added. Kerrin Jeromin, the meteorologist for CBS affiliate station WPEC, reported the smoke plume from the explosion could be seen on radar.

Separately, Kennedy Space Center’s Emergency Operations Center said that it continues to “monitor the situation” and is “standing by to assist” if required. Initial reports indicated that there were no casualties and has been no threat to public safety. The company also is working on a crew capsule to ferry station US astronauts.

Two NASA astronauts were doing a spacewalk 250 miles up, outside the space station, when the explosion occurred. Mission Control did not notify them of the accident, saying all communication was focused on the spacewalk.

It was a bad morning for SpaceX, the California-based company founded by billionaire Elon Musk. The anomaly originated around the upper stage oxygen tank and occurred during propellant loading of the vehicle.

The Falcon 9 is launched from Canaveral’s SLC-40 pad from where Titan III and Titan IV launched between 1965 and 2005.