SpaceX, which seemed pretty optimistic about its re-scheduled CRS-7 Re-Supply Mission to the International Space Station, had to face the extreme opposite of what it had expected. The Falcon 9 rocket, which was scheduled to take the mission up to the ISS, exploded minutes after the launch, indicating why commercial space flight might still be one big distant dream.
The mission, which was supposed to be a re-supply mission to the ISS, took off at its scheduled 10 AM ET launch, with a liftoff targeted for 10:21 AM ET. However, just minutes after the Falcon 9 rocket went up, it exploded and was torn apart into pieces, which SpaceX dubbed an “anomaly” at the launch.
Here’s a video footage of the explosion :
Few minutes after the rocket went up in flames , SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk tweeted that the rocket experienced “problem shortly before first stage shutdown” and that he would provide more info as soon as his crew reviews the data.
Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown. Will provide more info as soon as we review the data.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2015
He further detailed out the cause behind this big failure, saying that “There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank”. Sadly, that’s all the detail you get in a tweet.
There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2015
NASA is holding on a press conference for the event right now, to which you can tune in below :
And yeah, just so you know, Microsoft was sending a gift to the astronauts above, its Hololens Augmented Reality handset, which obviously unfortunately got lost in the explosion.
