An explosion was seen from the site of a SpaceX rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Thursday morning. (Photo : Getty Images/ Justin Sullivan)
A SpaceX rocked exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Thursday morning where it was being test-fired ahead of its Saturday launch. Buildings miles away from the launch pad were shaken by the blast.
SpaceX said that an anomaly had happened while the rocket was being fueled and the CEO, Elon Musk tweeted that there were no injuries as a result of the explosion, but that the cause of the blast is still unknown, CNN reported.
Musk, who also is CEO of electric car maker Tesla (TSLA), has said he hopes the company will be able to take people to Mars as soon as 2025.
The rocket's payload was carrying an Israeli-built communications satellite used for Facebook and was due to launch on Saturday.
According to BBC News, Facebook in partnership with French satellite firm Eutelsat Communications, was to use Spacecoms' Amos-6 satellite to bring broadband internet access for swathes of Africa, Europe and the Middle East as part of its initiative, the Internet.org.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is travelling in Africa said that he was deeply disappointed to hear SpaceX's launch failure which destroyed their satellite. In a post on his Facebook account, he said that the satellite would have provided connectivity to many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.
The Facebook founder however, noted that they will remain committed to their mission of connecting everyone and they will keep working until everyone gets the opportunities the satellite would have provided. Zuckerberg also said he has other technologies to help connect people.
The 9:07 am blast, was a series of explosions that lasted for more than four minutes. The blast occurred at the Launch Complex 40, an Air Force facility which has been leased to SpaceX. Since 2010, he company has managed to launch 25 rockets from the site. Its rockets have carried supplies to the International Space Station as well as satellites.
SpaceX aiming at chnaging the economics of space flight by making rockets that land upright after launch and can then be reused. Though it has yet to carry any people into space, it has won a contract from NASA to take American astronauts to the space station in the future.
By late 2017, SpaceX is expected to receive flight readiness certification from NASA for those manned flights.
A leading Israeli space official said the loss of the Amos-6 satellite that was valued at more than $200m (£150m), was a major blow to the industry.
Here is a video of SpaceX Rocket Massive Explosion:
