SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Launchpad in Cape Canaveral
SpaceX Rocket Explodes at Launchpad in Cape Canaveral. A spectacular explosion of a SpaceX rocket on Thursday destroyed a $200 million communications satellite that would have extended Facebook’s reach across Africa, dealing a serious setback to Elon Musk, the billionaire who runs the rocket company.
The blast is likely to disrupt NASA’s cargo deliveries to the International Space Station, exposing the risks of the agency’s growing reliance on private companies like SpaceX to carry materials and, soon, astronauts.
“SpaceX is running a punishing schedule,” said Scott Pace, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former NASA official.
“There is probably some human factor involved here. To what extent was human error part of this? And if so, why? Are you running your people too hard? What are your safety requirements?”
The rocket had been set to launch on Saturday, carrying a satellite for Spacecom, an Israeli company.
NASA said it was too soon to say how the explosion would affect its space station operations, asserting that it remained “confident” in its commercial partners. “Today’s incident – while it was not a NASA launch – is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but our partners learn from each success and setback,” the agency said.
An episode like Thursday’s is rare. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who tracks rocket history, said the last time such an explosion happened on a Cape Canaveral launchpad, before the ignition of engines for liftoff, was in 1959.
http://www.nytimes.com/
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