Following an ontime liftoff at 10:21 am on Sunday morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying an unmanned Dragon cargo vehicle broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean. Falcon’s first two minutes its flight to the International Space Station were flawless; however, approximately 139 seconds into the mission and just prior to the first stage separation, the vehicle disintegrated.
This is the first failure of the Falcon 9 for the California-based SpaceX. Since its maiden liftoff in 2010, the company has celebrated a total of 18 successful launches. The Falcon 9 rocket is composed of two stages, with the first stage shut down—also known as main engine cutoff (MECO)—occurring approximately 159 seconds into the flight. However, approximately 20 seconds before that, the vehicle experienced an anomaly.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted an update soon after saying, “Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before the first stage shutdown. There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank.”
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