Satellite owner says SpaceX owes it $50 million or a free flight

However, these dreams were crushed when the Falcon 9 rocket exploded just before a routine engine-firing test, while it was being fuelled with liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene propellant on the launch pad.

The Israeli owners of the destroyed AMOS-6 satellite have reportedly been hard hit by the loss. Its other two launchpads in Florida and California weren’t affected by the explosion, and the company said it was “confident the two launch pads can support our return to flight and fulfill our upcoming manifest needs”.

AMOS-6 was supposed to provide home internet for Africa and the Middle East. In addition to Facebook’s satellite meant to bring internet to an entire continent, Spacecom, an Israeli-based satellite operator, had a satellite onboard. David Pollack, Space Com CEO, said during a conference call on Sunday, “As a result of the loss of Amos-6, our service agreements with Facebook Inc. and Eutelsat Communications were canceled”. Facebook and Space Communication have been partners for some time now in developing new satellite technologies to be able to beam Internet to different parts of the world.

SpaceX, a privately funded company, has not disclosed the insurance it has. The agency, which oversees US commercial rocket launches, requires that SpaceX’s flights be suspended pending results of the probe.

The space launch company is one of three major transportation and energy enterprises Musk leads. The others are electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors Inc TSLA.O and SolarCity Corp SCTY.O , and Musk faces separate challenges at each of those money losing companies.

Spacecom has faced a £30m decline in equity following last week’s incident to $123m, described as a significant impact by the company. Its shares dropped 9 per cent on Thursday, plummeting another 34 per cent when trading resumed on Monday morning.

The explosion may imperil Space Com’s $285 million sale to a unit of Beijing Xinwei Group, because the successful launch of the satellite was a condition of the deal, said Meir Slater, head of research at Bank of Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Spacecom is on the verge of recovery as they are hoping and looking forward to a fruitful communications with their prospective buyers for other rockets according to its General Counsel Gil Lotan.

SpaceX is within its legal rights to carry out the investigation itself, though the FAA will still be there to watch over things. Musk’s SpaceX, which has missions worth more than $10 billion lined up, is expected to shift its launch site to another base in Florida.