SpaceX is not willing to engage in a new mission until January. This will be the first task of the company since they have launched Falcon 9 rocket back in September. The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk had argued that his business was bound to start another mission by mid-December, launching ten spaceships for Iridium, the satellite-communications company.
- Since the explosion which happened in September, SpaceX developed several investigations of the event.
- Until January, the company does not plant to return back in space.
Last week, representatives from Iridium had asserted that the launch might occur on December 16. A spokesperson from SpaceX has declared on December 7th that the company needs more time to prepare for the mission. They have stated that they are currently busy investigating the anomaly which happened on September 1st and they are also trying to complete the final steps of preparing a reliable return into space at the beginning of January.
Until January when they will launch Iridium-1, the space company will have enough time to finish the preparations and tests for the spacecraft to assure full safety when setting off for space again. The spaceship will set off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Back on September 1st, there had occurred an explosion during a routine test for launching the communication satellite known as AMOS-6. The explosion had affected Falcon 9, and it destroyed the satellite worth $200 million.
SpaceX spent a lot of time investigating the matter, detecting the anomaly which caused such a terrible event. The problem was the interaction between a container full of carbon-composite helium and oxygen. The explosion took place at the upper stage of the space rocket. SpaceX still needs more time to finish the report about the blast, receiving a signature from the US Federal Aviation Administration which will confirm the results of the investigation.
This was not the first time SpaceX confronted with such a tragic event. Back in June 2015, a Falcon 9 spaceship had torn apart after a few minutes from its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The incident scrapped the unscrewed cargo mission of SpaceX which was flying to the International Space Station for NASA.
After the terrible incident had occurred, an upgraded version of the spaceship set off six months later, successfully launching into space 11 satellites for Orbcomm. The first stage of Falcon 9 returned at Cape Canaveral in December 2015, the event being known as the first time a rover accomplished a soft landing during an orbital launch.
Image courtesy of: wikipedia
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