SpaceX reported today that it has concluded its investigation into the explosion of one of its rockets on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral late last year. The company had halted all future launches after the explosion as it scrambled to find out precisely what went wrong that ended up destroying its rocket as well as all of the cargo that it was supposed to take up to space. SpaceX has reached a conclusion and is now expecting to launch its first rocket after the explosion on January 8th, 2017.
SpaceX conducted its investigation into the explosion with agencies including NASA and the FAA. They reviewed all recorded materials very carefully. Additional tests were also conducted at SpaceX’s facility in California and Texas.
The company lost one of its Falcon 9 rockets to an explosion in September last year during pre-launch fueling. The investigation team found that the explosion was caused by a failure of a pressure vessel inside the tank that’s used to store liquid oxygen for the Falcon 9’s second stage fuel burn.
SpaceX has said that it’s going to take both short-term and long-term measures to ensure that this problem doesn’t cause another one of its rockets to explode. It’s confident that these measures will make the pre-launch fueling process safer both now and in the future.
Filed in . Read more about Falcon 9, Rockets and Spacex. Source: spacex