Tech company SpaceX suffered a setback when their recent Commercial Resupply Services 7 mission exploded in mid-air briefly after launching. It was planned for a SpaceX cargo ship to bring supplies to the crew aboard the International Space Station for a resupply mission.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, attributed the explosion to an “overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank.” Musk offered little information beyond that and assured his Twitter followers more details would be revealed once an investigation could be completed.
According to TechCrunch, NASA administrator Charles Boden helped calm public panic by explaining that the astronauts aboard the space station had enough supplies for several months. NASA will work with OrbitalATK, another space cargo partner, to launch another resupply mission next summer.
NASA released a statement that read, in part,
“We are disappointed in the loss of the latest SpaceX cargo supply mission to the International Space Station, however, the astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months. We will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened, fix the problem and return to flight.”
-Jonathan Hailey(@JaySpeakEasy_)
