A SpaceX rocket exploded only minutes after launching from Cape Canaveral on Sunday in the third incident involving a resupply mission within a year.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 was unmanned and headed to the International Space Station to deliver over
5,000 pounds of supplies, Florida Today reported.
"This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement on the day of the incident, according to Florida Today. He also assured his listeners that "today's launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program.”
The investigation of the rocket that exploded just two minutes and 19 seconds after its 10:21 a.m. blast off is ongoing. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder, tweeted about the suspected cause of the explosion.
William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human explorations and operations, says there is “no negligence here,”
regarding launch’s failure, The Washington Post reported.
SpaceX has had 18 successful launches of rockets of this type, but the incident comes after two other aircraft incidents.
“Having three [failures] this close together is not what we had hoped for,” International Space Station program manager Mike Suffrendi told Florida Today. "Fortunately we had put ourselves in a position . . . where we had quite a bit of logistics on board to support the crew."
The rocket carried supplies including food, student experiments, a water filtration system, and hardware intended to assist crew members in docking vehicles to the space station. However, Suffrendi insists the incident will have only a limited impact on the International Space Station crew.
“The astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months. We will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened, fix the problem and return to flight. The commercial cargo program was designed to accommodate loss of cargo vehicles,” he said, according to The Washington Post.
The International Space Station is not expected to run out of food until the fall, The Post noted.
“They supply the station with all these contingencies in mind,” says Stephanie Schierholz, NASA spokeswoman, adding that there are also eight more flights to the station scheduled for this year.
"I’m confident in SpaceX that they’ll figure out this problem and get back to flying," Eric Stallmer, Commercial Flight Federation president, said, according to The Post.
Scott Kelly, astronaut at the International Space Station, tweeted shortly after the failed launch.