SpaceX Rocket Explodes Minutes After Takeoff

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was carrying Dragon capsule full of supplies and equipment to astronauts on the space station.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Anyone who comes into contact with debris from an exploded SpaceX rocket is being warned to leave the area quickly and report it to officials, NASA says.

Shotwell said that this incident is a reminder of how hard working in space is.

The Falcon took off at 10:21 am and exploded a little more than two minutes after takeoff.

SpaceX said that it is reviewing “every frame of video” and that its teams are putting together detailed timelines to determine exactly what happened. Telemetry indicates first stage flight was nominal and that Dragon remained healthy for some period of time following separation, according to SpaceX officials.

The rocket failure was the third in a series of cargo disasters in the past eight months.

Meanwhile, NASA reported that the astronauts aboard the space station have enough rations – food, water and other supplies – to last them until October of this year. So the loss of the SpaceX rocket does not pose an immediate threat for them. The Dragon capsule, which was aboard the Falcon rocket and is slated to carry the humans to the ISS in the near future, continued to send signals to the ground after the rocket fell to earth.

The commercial cargo programme was created to accommodate loss of cargo vehicles. NOAA planned to launch the Jason-3 mission on August 8 with SpaceX.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) described it as a “mishap”.

Sunday’s accident leaves the United States temporarily dependent on Russian Federation and Japan to resupply the station.

With Russian Federation all set to make its first attempt since losing a supply capsule in April, the incident might put added pressure on this resupply launch scheduled for Friday.

Despite ideal launch conditions and multiple successful missions under their belt, SpaceX experienced a fateful glitch in their recent unmanned cargo delivery to the worldwide Space Station (ISS). It was carrying over 2 tons of supplies, including 1,500 pounds of food and provisions for the crew aboard the space station. He said the USA space agency would work closely with SpaceX to understand and fix the problem.