Rocket breaks apart minutes after take-off on way to Space Station

The rocket was carrying supplies to the worldwide Space Station.

Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX, said in a press conference that the company will investigate the explosion of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket minutely and they will do everything they need to do to correct it.

“At this point it is not clear to the launch team exactly what happened”.

The explosion of the rocket and capsule occurred about 2 minutes, 30 seconds into the flight. The video of the launch, complete with explosion, is still available on the official SpaceX YouTube page, and preliminary data on the “anomaly” has been released. “Telemetry indicates first stage flight was nominal and that Dragon remained healthy for some period of time following separation. However, the astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months”, said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

NASA is asking anyone living along Florida’s Atlantic coast to call authorities if they find any rocket debris.

The commercial cargo programme was created to accommodate loss of cargo vehicles.

NASA will closely study the SpaceX to find out what went wrong and to try fix the issue in order to set another flight. SpaceX is in charge of the investigation, under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The incident may affect SpaceX’s chances in a competition for a contract to launch USA surveillance and military satellites, which is now served exclusively by a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, the United Launch Alliance. This is the second launch failure in a row for the ISS resupply project and the third in the past year.

A Russian supply ship spun out of control shortly after liftoff in April and burned up on re-entry with all its contents.

Bolden said the Sunday’s loss marked SpaceX’s first failed mission to the space station, through it extended a string of setbacks for space station resupply. The company was about to deliver its Dragon spacecraft carrying over 4,000 pounds of food, supplies and scientific experiments to the orbiting space station. In addition to resupplying the space station, the rocket was supposed to make a third attempt to land on a barge.

SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has also been lobbying for the opportunity to launch the Pentagon’s spy satellites and other crucial spacecraft.