SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Explosion Destroys Facebook’s First Communication Satellite

Facebook and satellite partner Eutelsat Communications S.A. had meant to use the technology to support low-priced broadband services in sub-Saharan Africa. 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.

Based near Los Angeles, SpaceX is run by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is perhaps better known as the founder of electric vehicle company Tesla. In that mishap, a support strut evidently snapped in the upper stage; the problem was fixed.

The cause is unknown and has been put down to “an anomaly” by the satellite’s owner, Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. He added that the satellite “would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent”.

“Fortunately, we have developed other technologies, like Aquila, that will connect people as well”, he wrote in a blog post.

“The two-stage Falcon 9 and its payload, a communications satellite called Amos-6, were destroyed during an engine test Thursday, which was part of the standard protocol to prepare for a planned Saturday (Sept. 3) launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station”.

NASA said SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its pioneering unmanned rocket when the disaster struck. The social network said that it is disappointed by the loss however, it remains committed to its “mission of connecting people to the Internet around the world”. It quotes the appropriately named Dick Rocket as saying: “If anyone on this planet can recover from this, it’s Elon Musk”.

A video of the explosion shows a fireball enveloping the top of the rocket.

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No one was injured in the explosion, according to multiple official sources.

That’s because the Dragon space capsule, which SpaceX plans to use for manned flights as soon as next year, has eight escape rockets built into its walls created to lift astronauts out of harm’s way if the Falcon rocket below it is destroyed.

The explosion shook buildings several miles away, and additional explosions followed for several minutes. In June 2015, a SpaceX rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station blew up shortly after launch.

In the same tweet in which Musk asserted that astronauts would be saved from Falcon’s destruction on Thursday, he also denied that the blast that destroyed the rocket and the satellite was an explosion.

A Falcon 9 didn’t fly again after the June 2015 explosion until December 21, when the rocket successfully lofted 11 satellites for the company Orbcomm – and the Falcon 9 first stage came back to Cape Canaveral and pulled off the first-ever soft landing during an orbital launch.

SpaceX is the cheapest rocket launch provider and thereby preferred by the most.