SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket destroyed in explosion

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its Cape Canaveral launch pad during a test on 1 September 2016.

The explosion destroyed a commercial satellite that Facebook had planned to use to extend Internet access in Africa.

It was the second time in just over a year that SpaceX has lost a Falcon 9 rocket, which is slated to launch NASA astronauts for the first time in 2017.

About SpaceX

• Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company.

• The company is headquartered in Hawthorne, California, United States.

• It was founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.

• The company was founded with the goal of creating the technologies to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars.

• It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both designed to be reusable.

• SpaceX is funded by government subsidiaries and contracts.

• SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded, liquid-propellant rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit in 2008.

• It is also the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) in 2010.

• The launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) in 2015 was the company's first delivery beyond Earth orbit.

• NASA awarded the company a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract in 2006 to design and demonstrate a launch system to resupply cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

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