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The space launch
company led by billionaire Elon Musk said it has not confirmed
the cause of a failure in the fueling system. However, the
company said in a statement that testing at a facility in Texas
had shown that a helium canister inside the rocket could burst
depending on how it was filled.
SpaceX halted flights while it investigated the cause of the
accident. The company, which has a backlog of more than 70
missions worth over $10 billion, said it was working on
developing new techniques to load helium into its rockets and
hoped to be back flying before the end of the year.
Helium is used to pressurize the liquid oxygen system. Accident
investigators suspect that a canister of helium inside the
liquid oxygen tank burst.
“These conditions are mainly affected by the temperature and
pressure of the helium being loaded,” SpaceX said in a
statement.
The Falcon 9 rocket was being filled with fuel at its Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station launch pad for a routine, preflight
engine test when a fireball burst out from around the booster’s
upper-stage liquid oxygen tank. The blast destroyed a $200
million communications satellite owned by Israel’s Space
Communication Ltd.
The investigation is continuing, led by SpaceX with oversight
from the Federal Aviation Administration’s space transportation
office. SpaceX said NASA, the US Air Force and industry experts
are also working to "investigate all plausible causes."
(Reporting By Irene Klotz; Editing by Chris Reese and Andrew
Hay)
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