Nasa SpaceX mission to International Space Station ends in explosion

Nasa and the International Space station suffered a “big loss” on Sunday, when the launch of a SpaceX supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) ended in an explosion that destroyed an unmanned Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket propelling it.

A video posted to Instagram showed the explosion. Reports said pieces of the spacecraft and rocket could be seen falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

In a statement, Nasa administrator Charles Bolden said: “We are disappointed in the loss of the latest SpaceX cargo resupply 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.”

At a lunchtime press conference, Michael Suffredini, manager of the space station programme, said the incident was a “big loss, I don’t want to underplay that”. But he said “we will pick ourselves up and get on to the next flight”.

Suffredini said the mission had until late October to support the ISS crew with logistics. If the day arrived where they were running out of food and water, a separate vehicle was available to bring the crew back to Earth.

“But we are not even close to that point,” he said.

Suffredini said the equipment that had been lost, including a docking adaptor and a radio system, had duplicates that were still available to be sent up to the station. But he added: “We have lost some research hardware we will have to recover.”

Cargo on the umanned Dragon SpX-7 spacecraft, which was powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, included food and care packages, systems hardware, “science materials”, computer resources and spacewalking equipment. It also carried a docking adaptor for the station as part of operations to prepare for future commercial missions. At the end of a five-week mission the rocket was due to return 675kg of goods to Earth.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigators were already working at the site of the ill-fated launch. Pam Underwood of the FAA said the expedition had been conducted under an FAA launch license and the FAA would provide oversight to SpaceX as it tried to work out what had happened. Underwood said the incident was being classified as a “mishap”.

William Gerstenmaier, a senior official at Nasa headquarters, emphasised that no negligence had occured.

“There was no problem with it,” he said. “It just shows the challenges we have with engineering and space flight generally.”

Gerstenmaier added: “We will get stronger from these events. The team will learn from these and we will get back flying again. We will understand the failure and move forward.”

In his statement, Bolden said Nasa would “keep pushing the envelope as we move into space”. “It’s not easy living on the frontier,” he added. “It is not easy and not routine.”

Shortly after the explosion, ISS astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted on the same lines when he said: “Watched #Dragon launch from @space_station Sadly failed Space is hard Teams assess below @NASAKennedy #YearInSpace”.

SpaceX is owned and operated by the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk. On Twitter, he said: “Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown. Will provide more info as soon as we review the data.”

At the press conference, Gwen Shotwell, the company’s chief operating officer, said the investigation into the crash would take less than a year, though it could last several months.

At 10.22am on Sunday, Nasa tweeted a picture of the launch of the rocket with the traditional phrase: “We have liftoff.” Shortly afterward, on Twitter, the agency said: “Something went wrong with the launch. @SpaceX is evaluating the status of the mission.”

Moments later, it added: “The range confirmed that the vehicle has broken up. @SpaceX is putting together their anomaly team.”

At the press conference, Gerstenmaier said Nasa and SpaceX would go ahead with the next scheduled supply flight on 3 July, despite the failures of the past three supply flights. He said it seemed prudent to keep doing the research.

“We are really starting to learn a lot now and provide data back to Earth, so we need to keep doing that,” he said.

In April, a Russian cargo ship fell out of control and came down. Last October, another supply ship was destroyed in a launch accident.

In his statement, Nasa administrator Bolden said: “SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success.

“We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward.

“This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. Today’s launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight programme.”