CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., (Reuters) – An explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its cargo during preparations for a routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida yesterday, two days before it had been due to blast off and place a satellite in orbit.
SpaceX said there were no injuries and that an “anomaly” during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and a communications satellite owned by Israel-based Space Communication which was going to be used by Facebook to expand internet access in Africa.
Video showed a fiery blast ripping through the upper part of the rocket before the vehicle collapsed in flames on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station just after 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT). A plume of black smoke poured into the air.
The rocket’s loss occurred while the first and second stages were being filled with propellant, the company said late on Thursday in a statement. “Cause still unknown. More soon,” Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur who helped found Tesla Motors, said on Twitter.
It was not immediately known to what extent SpaceX’s launch pad was damaged or what the impact would be on the dozens of NASA and commercial satellite missions on its launch schedule.
The company has a second launch site at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, and it has also leased one of the old space shuttle launch pads adjacent to its Cape Canaveral site. A fourth launch site is being built in Texas.
Several customers expressed support for SpaceX while saying they were not sure of the impact of the explosion on their own plans.
“We’re confident in SpaceX and that they will find and resolve any issues causing this incident, and we will be ready to go once that occurs,” Iridium Communications Inc said in a statement.
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.
Facebook would have been among the customers for bandwidth on that satellite. Last year, it said it was partnering with Eutelsat Communications to boost data connectivity to large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The explosion could derail the sale of Spacecom for $285 million to Beijing Xinwei Technology Group. The companies unveiled the agreement last week, but said it was contingent on the successful launch of the satellite and completion of its in-orbit tests.
In a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Spacecom said the loss will have “a significant impact” on the company. Its shares closed down 8.9 percent at 38.95 shekels.
The commercial space office of the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial rocket launches in the United States, has inspectors at the launch site who were overseeing the preflight engine test, and the agency is collecting information about damage to the pad, spokesman Hank Price said.
People in buildings far from the facility felt shock waves, but local authorities said residents were not at risk.
Robin Seemangal, a space reporter with the Observer newspaper, quoted a source at the facility who said it felt like the office they were in had been hit by lightning.
“We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad,” Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source.
