This morning, Spacex was preparing to launch a 200 million dollar Facebook satellite from their launchpad. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but thankfully no one was hurt. Oh, and it made one hell of a boom!
The Falcon 9 rocket suffered the malfunction during testing this morning. Elon Musk, founder of the company and real-life Tony Stark tweeted out “Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation. Originated around upper stage oxygen tank. Cause still unknown. More soon.”
Meanwhile, SpaceX released the following statement:
At Approximately 9:07 ET, during a standard pre-launch static fire test for the AMOS-6 mission, there was an anomaly at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40 resulting in the loss of the vehicle.
The anomaly originated around the upper storage tank and occurred during propellant loading of the vehicle. Per standard operating procedure, all personnel were clear of the pad and there were no injuries.
We are continuing to review the data to identify the root cause. Additional updates will be provided as they become available.
The Facebook Satellite that was destroyed was a part of Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to bring the internet to Sub-Saharan Africa. Previously, the Facebook founder had said this about the project.
“As part of our collaboration with Eutelsat, a new satellite called AMOS-6 is going to provide internet coverage to large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. The AMOS-6 satellite is under construction now and will launch in 2016 into a geostationary orbit that will cover large parts of West, East and Southern Africa. We’re going to work with local partners across these regions to help communities begin accessing internet services provided through satellite.”