SpaceX Rocket Blows Up, $200 Million Dollar Satellite Lost
If you haven’t been on the internet today at all until right now, you may have missed the SpaceX rocket exploding at Cape Canaveral. When you usually hear about SpaceX, you probably think of those rockets that land on the platforms in the middle of the ocean. SpaceX also happens to launch satellites into space, too. Space is covered so little that it’s only really talked about when something bad happens. Well, something bad happened.
Related: SpaceX successfully launches docking ring to space station
The rocket was carrying a Facebook communications satellite that costs a whopping $200 million dollars. Plans for Facebook to expand will have to be put on hold because the entire rocket exploded on the launchpad. The Falcon 9 rocket was actually scheduled to launch on Saturday, but when you launch something into space, you have to do tests.
The satellite was supposed to provide web connectivity to parts of the world that don’t have much internet. As hard as it is to believe, there are place in the world where you can’t call up an ISP and get internet. Shocking, right? Here’s what Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had to say on his FB page:
“As I’m here in Africa, I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.”
Elon Musk went on to describe what went wrong:
“Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation. Originated around upper stage oxygen tank. Cause still unknown. More soon.”
As you may expect, Tesla is getting hit hard in the stock market because of the explosion. As I’m writing this, Tesla is hovering around 11 points being shaved off its price. Ouch.
Stocks are a touchy thing, but so is space flight. You can’t expect every launch to be successful when you deal with that much flammable material. Let’s hope that SpaceX finds out exactly what happened so this type of thing can be prevented in future launches.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com