Thursday, September 1, 2016

SpaceX Rocket Explodes In Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral in Florida at 9am ET, during test firing of a mission that was set to launch on Saturday. According to SpaceX, the failure occurred during the launch static fire test, and resulted in the loss of both the vehicle and its payload. SpaceX said that there were no injuries in the accident. Hawthorne-based SpaceX had been gearing up to launch AMOS-6, a commercial communications satellite going to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit, which was built for Israeli firm Spacecom. NASA webcam photos of the launchpad showed a big plume of smoke from the Falcon 9 launchpad. SpaceX regularly runs a test firing of each of its stages before each of its launches, tests which ensure systems are operational. SpaceX indicated that the failure came not as a result of a failure of the Falcon 9, but what it described as a "pad anomaly".

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