Elon Musk’s SpaceX suffered a setback this weekend when its Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames just two minutes after takeoff. The cargo craft had no astronauts on board and no one was hurt by the explosion.
“There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank,” tweeted Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors who is trying to launch commercial Internet service from space. “Data suggests counterintuitive cause,” Musk said.
The Falcon 9 is not part of SpaceX’s mobile Internet project; it was commissioned by NASA to take supplies to the International Space Station. The capsule was carrying 4,000 pounds of food and supplies to the space station, where American Scott Kelly and Russia’s Mikhail Kornienko are spending a year in space. NASA said negligence was not the cause of the explosion.
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The launch and subsequent explosion can be seen on YouTube and was also seen by astronaut Scott Kelly, who saw the explosion from ISS.
“Sadly failed Space is hard Teams assess below,” Kelly tweeted from the space station. Even without the food and supplies that were on the Falcon 9, Kelly and Kornienko have enough to last for several months, according to NASA. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said yesterday that the agency will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened and get ready for another flight.