SpaceX's seventh Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-7) mission literally went up in flames 27 miles into the air, which could lead to a significant hitch in the company's future work with NASA.
SpaceX is currently planning to use a certain kind of Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) from U.S. soil.
On Sunday's CRS-7 flight, the Falcon 9 rocket "experienced an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight," SpaceX said in a statement.
The Wall Street Journal reported SpaceX may not get an attempt to fly astronauts to the ISS until 2017 or later. NASA still has incentive to stick with SpaceX because sending astronauts to Russia to be ferried up to the ISS is greatly expensive.
Speaking at a news conference after the launch failure, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the error was "not a first-stage issue," which bodes well for figuring out what went wrong. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden indicated the space agency would be sticking with SpaceX for future missions.
"SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success," he said in a statement. "We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward. This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. Today's launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program."
