How SpaceX is looking past its failed rocket launch
Even as Elon Musk's space company SpaceX聽 continues to investigate the failed launch of Sept. 1, it's looking ahead to the next in a long backlog of missions.
Even as Elon Musk's space company SpaceX聽 continues to investigate the failed launch of Sept. 1, it's looking ahead to the next in a long backlog of missions.
The president of SpaceX, Elon Musk's space company, says it will aim to resume flights in November after its Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad during a Sept. 1 fuel test in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
"We're anticipating 鈥� being down for about three months, getting back to flight in the November timeframe," said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating offer of Space X, at a satellite industry conference in Paris on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
SpaceX has not said how much damage the explosion caused in financial terms, though the Israeli communications satellite that it had planned to hoist into orbit 鈥� also destroyed by the launch pad fire 鈥� was worth about $200 million. The customer for the return mission, set to take place at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, has not yet been named, but a director of planning at the KSC told Reuters that the Center was "confident that SpaceX will understand and recover from what happened."
The quick return to the launch pad is characteristic of the company that has continued to push hard to stay well out in front of potential competitors in the spaceflight business. As 海角大神 reported on Monday, SpaceX is about five years older than Blue Origin, the aerospace company owned by Jeff Bezos:
Shortly after the accident, Mr. Musk asked NASA and members of the public to help SpaceX figure out what caused the fire 鈥� a perhaps unprecedented move, noted the Monitor:
The accident is the second failure in 28 launches of the Falcon 9.聽The company has plans to carry out more than 70 missions, worth more than $10 billion.
This report contains material from Reuters.