The U.S. Air Force confirmed it ordered SpaceX's ill-fated unmanned Falcon 9 rocket to self-destruct minutes after takeoff Sunday.

In a news conference shortly after the failed Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-7) mission, News 96.5 noted, an Air Force official indicated there may have been a glitch ground control detected, triggering a calculated self-destruct command.

"We are trying to correlate the timelines between the last data that we got from the vehicle, which was a 2 minutes and 19 seconds, and correlate that with whatever the range safety officer was required to do with his actions as far as the flight termination systems," George Diller, NASA's launch commentator, said at the news conference. "So that is still part of the data that is being pieced together."

Dan Brillow, of WESH 2, an NBC affiliate, later asked if that meant the ground control at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base gave the self-destruct command, according to the Brevard Times. Officials said they could not comment, but the U.S. Air Force 45th Space Wing later emailed a statement to Brillow, which he posted to Twitter.

"During the launch, prior to the first stage shut-off, the Falcon 9 experienced an anomaly and catastrophic failure," read the statement. "Following the breakup of the Falcon 9 vehicle, 45th Space Wing Mission Flight Control Officers sent command destruct functions in accordance with Air Force policy and procedures to ensure public safety."

SpaceX is set to begin an investigation into what went wrong with their rocket, but Elon Musk, the company's CEO wrote on Twitter his engineers are working to figure it out as soon as possible.

SpaceX has plans to use another Falcon rocket to eventually fly astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. Those plans may be delayed, but SpaceX did recently successfully tested an emergency ejection system.

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