*Here's
everything you need to know about the SpaceX rocket that exploded
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launchpad just before a test fire on Thursday morning
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A photo of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explosion that was taken by an eyewitness in Cape Canaveral, Florida.Business Insider
Here's everything you need to know:
At 9:07 a.m. on September 1, an explosion shook Space Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Smoke billowed from the scene. Thankfully, no one was near the rocket while the propellant was being loaded before the test fire, so there were no injuries from the blast.
But Florida residents reported sliding glass doors coming off their hinges, and some thought that their house had been hit by lightning, according to local Orlando news outlets.
WFTV said on air: "This may have been the biggest explosion we have ever felt in central Florida."
The rocket was carrying the $200 million AMOS-6 satellite, a Facebook project to deliver internet to the developing world. The satellite was scheduled to launch on the Falcon 9 this weekend. It was destroyed.
Elon Musk's private space company said that the explosion originated around the liquid-oxygen tank on the upper stage of the rocket as it was being fueled. It is still investigating the cause.
Sources: Business Insider, SpaceX
This catastrophic explosion forces SpaceX to conduct an accident investigation, clean up the launch site, and repair whatever damage was done. The company still isn't sure how badly damaged the launch site was.
Source: SpaceX
The incident throws a serious wrench in the company's ambitious launch schedule. SpaceX had planned to complete six more launches before January 2017. The company has about 70 missions on its manifest worth over $10 billion.
Sources: Business Insider, SpaceX
SpaceX also operates another launchpad at Cape Canaveral and one in California that are undergoing upgrades. The company said on September 2 that it's "confident the two launch pads can support our return to flight and fulfill our upcoming manifest needs."
Source: SpaceX
SpaceX is one of two companies contracted to deliver supplies to the International Space Station for NASA, with hopes of one day soon ferrying astronauts there as well. This explosion may further delay that goal.
Source: Office of the Inspector General
"NASA remains confident in our commercial partners and in the goals of the Commercial Crew Program to take astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit," NASA said in a statement to Business Insider on September 2. "It is too early to know whether Thursday's incident will impact their development schedules."
Until now, SpaceX's 230-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket has accomplished remarkable feats.
Its inaugural test flight was in 2010. Falcon 9 has since launched 19 times.
Source: SpaceX
Falcon 9, as the number suggests, is a later generation of SpaceX's original Falcon 1 rocket.
The spacecraft can deliver satellites to orbit or supplies to the International Space Station.
Falcon 9's greatest appeal is that it's reusable. Once it launches its payload, the first stage of the rocket comes back to Earth.
The first stage of Falcon 9 can land back on a launchpad, or on a wobbly ship at sea.
Source: Business Insider
In the last year alone, SpaceX has successfully launched and landed Falcon 9 six times.
Reusable rockets can save SpaceX millions of dollars, since the company doesn't have to start from scratch and build a whole new rocket every time.
Rockets obviously need a lot of tests to make sure that they are ready to go into space. The one SpaceX was conducting on September 1 was a static test fire. According to SpaceX, the explosion occurred 8 minutes before the test was supposed to start.
Source: Business Insider
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