Rocket explodes on launch pad in blow to Elon Musk's SpaceX

(Agencies) Updated: 2016-09-02 03:45

FACEBOOK 'DISAPPOINTED'

In a post from Africa, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he was deeply disappointed at the loss of the satellite which he said would have provided connectivity to many entrepreneurs and others across the continent.

"We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided," he wrote.

Eutelsat said it also regretted the loss, but that it remained committed to growing broadband in Africa. The potential impact on its revenues was estimated at up to 50 million euros by 2019, the company said in a statement.

SpaceX had planned to dispatch as many as nine more missions before the end of the year, including two flights to place a 20-member satellite network into orbit for Iridium.

It was due to launch its next mission in November to fly cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. SpaceX is one of two companies that transports cargo to the orbiting laboratory, which flies 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

"NASA still is assessing what impacts, if any, the incident will have on future missions," spokesman Michael Curie said in an email.

Shares of Musk's companies Tesla Motors and SolarCity were down 4 percent at $203.65 and 5.5 percent at $19.50 respectively in morning trade.

R.W. Baird analyst Ben Kallo said those share price moves were in response to a disclosure on Wednesday by Tesla, which has agreed to buy SolarCity, that it would need to raise additional funds, and not to the explosion in Florida.

SpaceX says it has a backlog of more than $10 billion in launch orders from customers including NASA and commercial companies. On Wednesday, it said it had signed its first customer to use a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket, but that launch was not due until later this year. The rocket that blew up on Thursday had never been flown before.

Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a Washington-based trade association, said he had the utmost confidence in SpaceX's ability to bounce back.

"The industry as a whole, including SpaceX, is very resilient and determined and will learn from today's incident and continue to move forward," Stallmer said.

The Hawthorne, California-based company was founded by Musk in 2002 and began launching its Falcon 9 rockets in June 2010, racking up 27 successful flights and one failure in a little more than six years.

SpaceX had recovered from a June 2015 launch accident that destroyed a load of cargo headed for the space station.

Earlier this year, it successfully broke a monopoly by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, to win a military satellite launch contract.

The pad where SpaceX's rocket was being prepared for launch is one of two operated by the company. Its other site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Musk set up SpaceX with the goal of slashing launch costs to make travel to Mars affordable. The company plans to fly its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018 and to send humans to the red planet as early as 2024.

Musk is expected to unveil details of his Mars program at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, next month.