SpaceX has apparently identified what caused their rocket to burn up mid-flight during an unmanned resupply run to the International Space Station (ISS) last month.

According to the Los Angeles Times, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told reporters on a conference call a two-foot steel band within the rocket snapped. The strut, which snapped under pressure during the rocket's second stage, was one of many holding down helium bottles.

Musk said the part came faulty from a subcontractor, who he did not believe was to blame. Rather, he indicated SpaceX could have become too laid back in checking parts from suppliers for even the slightest of faults.

"This was a purchased part," Musk told reporters. "We just install it at SpaceX.

"Most people at the company today have only ever seen success," he said. "When you've only ever seen success, you don't fear failure quite as much."

As the Times pointed out, SpaceX took pride in its long string of successful flights, as Musk encourages his employees to bring up what they consider even the smallest of suspicions. The company has also been able to expand from hundreds of workers in 2008 to thousands as of this year.

"We have been able to replicate the failure by taking a huge sample, essentially thousands of these struts, and pulling them. We found a few that failed far below their certificated level. That's what led us to think that there was one just far below its rated capability that happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time," Musk told Discovery News.

SpaceX is now set to focus once again on designing a vehicle that will be able to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS, an effort to end the U.S.' reliance on Russia for such a service.

"While the CRS-7 loss is regrettable, this review process invariably will, in the end, yield a safer and more reliable launch vehicle for all of our customers, including NASA, the United States Air Force, and commercial purchasers of launch services," SpaceX said in a statement. "Critically, the vehicle will be even safer as we begin to carry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017."

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