The Cape Canaveral, Florida rocket launch location, owned by SpaceX, was reportedly the home to a large explosion Thursday morning.
Image Credit: TechCrunch
Social media exploded with photographs and video footage of what had looked like a disaster at the SpaceX headquarters.
Billowing black smoke, as well as an explosion that sent a shockwave that employees say could be felt throughout the surrounding buildings, was reportedly the result of a failed Falcon 9 static rocket fire test.
SpaceX came forward with an official statement on its Twitter account, expressing that nobody was hurt since it is a regular safety procedure for the launch pad to be evacuated of app personnel during test procedures so everyone is out of harm’s way when things go awry like it did today.
Statement on this morning's anomaly pic.twitter.com/3Xm2bRMS7T
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 1, 2016
This particular rocket was expected to launch on Saturday to deliver a satellite into space for Facebook, but as a result of the failed rocket test, which SpaceX says was due to an anomaly on the pad, both the rocket and the payload were destroyed.
SpaceX also claims that the explosion had no impact on the surrounding public, as the Cape Canaveral launch site is pretty well secluded away from homes and businesses.
From time to time, SpaceX has rocket mishaps, but they’re proving to be coming along nicely with reliability. The company has continually landed Falcon 9 rockets on their drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean several times and they’ve even managed to officially seal a deal with a buyer for launching one of their used first stages before the end of the year.
At this point in time, there’s no word on whether or not this mission will be re-attempted at a future date. Talks between the two companies who collaborated on it are undoubtedly going to take place following this incident.
Source: Reuters, TechCrunch