Created 29-Jun-15
Modified 13-Dec-23
June 28, 2015, 1021 a.m. EDT: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the ninth Dragon spacecraft on the seventh operational cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. Falcon 9 blasted off from SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida with over 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments including a critical docking adapter needed by future U.S. spacecraft.
It was a beautiful launch but a little over 2 minutes into flight, the Falcon 9 and Dragon cargo ship was lost when it appeared to explode in a ball of debris. Preliminary assessment is that there was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank.
It's a bad day for SpaceX, the Space Coast and space flight in general.
Photos taken from NASA Causeway; a distance of about 4 miles.
UPDATE: From Florida Today: "Teams were studying more than 3,000 channels of data recovered from the rocket and its Dragon capsule, which separated from the rocket (visible in photos 15-19) and continued to transmit telemetry for a period of time after the rocket disintegrated."
© Dennis Huff
