SpaceX rocket explosion demolishes Facebook’s communication satellite

No one was injured in the massive blast that left a Falcon 9 rocket engulfed in flames in Cape Canaveral on Thursday.

“Per standard operating procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries”. CEO of Space X Elon Musk confirmed that it was during the fuelling of the second stage that the explosion took place, though the root cause of it is now unknown.

SpaceX had been due to launch its 29th Falcon 9 rocket, which carries a list price of $62 million, before dawn on Saturday, carrying the Spacecom-owned AMOS-6.

Reuters reported that on Thursday Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket belonging to his SpaceX program exploded on its launch during preparations for a routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Last year, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said he was eager to use the AMOS-6 satellite to deliver broadband connectivity to hard-to-reach parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The explosion shook buildings several miles away, and additional explosions followed for several minutes. A half-hour later, a black cloud hung low across the eastern horizon.

A number of videos of the explosion have surfaced since the blast; the one below shows a close-up of the exact moment. The rocket was still standing, although the top third or so was clearly bent over.

Commenting on yesterday’s events, Prof Loizos Heracleous, Warwick Business School said: “The latest explosion of a SpaceX Falcon rocket…indicates the inherent unpredictability and risk involved in space flight, whether manned or unmanned, and whether missions are led by NASA or by commercial contractors”.

The US Air Force said in a statement that damage appeared to be contained within SpaceX’s launch complex.

Because the pad was still burning, it remained off-limits to everyone as the afternoon wore on. He also added that “We will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided”.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is now in Africa, said that he was deeply disappointed that the communications satellite had been destroyed.

The idea was for a limited number of free services, including Facebook, to educate users on how the internet might be useful – such as weather forecasts for farmers, and micro-payments. Amos-6 had been scheduled to launch this weekend, on September 3.

The aircraft saw its first test flight on July 21.

When Facebook formed Internet.org in 2013, the company was said to have already spent $1 billion on wireless infrastructure, including satellite technology and drones.

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.

The California-based SpaceX had been ramping up with frequent launches to make up for a backlog created by a launch accident in June 2015.

While the cause for the explosion has not been ascertained yet, the preliminary reports have indicated that the the cause was related to the upper stage oxygen tanks.

This isn’t the first problem SpaceX has had with its Falcon 9 rockets. Now that lineup is in jeopardy. SpaceX may be able to launch out of a different site at Cape Canaveral, though. It has yet to carry any people into space, though it has won a contract from NASA to carry American astronauts to the space station in the future.