"Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation," Mr Musk tweeted. "Originated around upper stage oxygen tank. Cause still unknown. More soon."

Dramatic footage broadcast by ABC News showed the rocket burst into a roaring ball of flame amid what appeared to be a succession of blasts - sending its payload tumbling to the ground as a dense plume of black smoke filled the air.

"At approximately 9:07am ET (1307 GMT), during a standard pre-launch static fire test for the Amos-6 mission, there was an anomaly at SpaceX's Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 resulting in loss of the vehicle," the firm said.

"Per standard operating procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries."

But the explosion destroyed the Israeli communications satellite that the Falcon 9 was due to deliver into orbit on Saturday - drawing a dismayed reaction from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.</s>An explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its satellite cargo during routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday, two days before it had been due to blast off and place the satellite in orbit.

SpaceX said there were no injuries and that an “anomaly” during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and the communications satellite owned by Israel-based Spacecom, which was going to be used by Facebook.

The large blast shook the launchpad leased by SpaceX at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station just after 9 a.m. ET (1300 GMT), sending a thick plume of black smoke pouring into the air.

Musk said on Twitter that the loss of the rocket had occurred while it was being filled with propellant and that the problem originated around the upper stage oxygen tank.

It was not immediately known to what extent SpaceX’s launchpad was damaged or what the impact would be on the dozens of NASA and commercial satellite missions on its launch schedule.

People in buildings far from the facility felt the shock waves, but local authorities said residents were not at risk.

“Heard/felt weird BOOMS this morning as SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded … Thank God no injuries!” one local woman, Evie Hedman, wrote on Twitter.

Robin Seemangal, a space reporter with the Observer newspaper, quoted a source at the facility who told him it felt like the office they were in had been hit by lightning.

“We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad,” Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial rocket launches in the United States, will work with SpaceX to understand the cause of the accident, said agency spokesman, Hank Price.

SpaceX had been due to launch its 29th Falcon 9 rocket before dawn on Saturday, carrying the AMOS-6 satellite owned by Israel’s Space Communication.

Facebook would have been among the customers for bandwidth on that satellite. Last year, Facebook said it was partnering with Eutelsat Communications to boost data connectivity to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Thursday’s launchpad explosion could derail the sale of Spacecom for $285 million to Beijing Xinwei Technology Group. The companies unveiled the agreement last week, but said it was contingent on the successful launch of the satellite and completion of its in-orbit tests.

In a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Spacecom said the satellite’s loss will have “a significant impact” on the company, and it would continue to provide updates about the situation. Its shares closed down 8.9 percent at 38.95 shekels.

In a post from Africa, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he was deeply disappointed at the loss of the satellite, which he said would have provided connectivity to many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.

“We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided,” he wrote.

SpaceX had planned to dispatch as many as nine more missions before the end of the year, including two flights to place a 20-member satellite network into orbit for Iridium.

SpaceX, one of two companies that fly cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, was next scheduled to take off in November for the orbiting laboratory, which flies 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

“NASA still is assessing what impacts, if any, the incident will have on future missions,” spokesman Michael Curie said in an email.

Shares of Musk’s companies Tesla Motors and SolarCity were down 4 percent at $203.65 and 5.5 percent at $19.50, respectively, in morning trade.

Tesla and SolarCity are not tied financially to SpaceX and it was not immediately clear if the explosion had affected their prices.

SpaceX says it has a backlog of more than $10 billion worth of launch orders from customers including NASA and commercial companies. On Wednesday, it said it had signed its first customer to use a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket, but that launch was not due until later this year. The rocket that blew up on Thursday had never been flown before.

The Hawthorne, California-based company was founded by Musk in 2002 and began launching its Falcon 9 rockets in June 2010, racking up 27 successful flights and one failure in a little more than six years.

SpaceX had recovered from a June 2015 launch accident that destroyed a load of cargo headed for the space station.

Earlier this year, it successfully broke a monopoly by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, to win a military satellite launch contract.

The pad where SpaceX’s rocket was being prepared for launch is one of two operated by the company. Its other site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

SpaceX also has leased one of the old space shuttle launchpads at the Kennedy Space Center, adjacent to SpaceX’s current launch site. A fourth U.S. site is under construction in Texas.

Musk set up SpaceX with the goal of slashing launch costs to make travel to Mars affordable. The company plans to fly its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018 and to send humans to the red planet as early as 2024.

Musk is expected to unveil details of his Mars program at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, next month.

The blast at Cape Canaveral marks a setback for the California-based private space firm and Musk, who wants to revolutionize the launch industry by making rocket components reusable.

Dramatic footage broadcast by ABC News showed the rocket burst into a roaring ball of flame amid what appeared to be a succession of blasts — sending its payload tumbling to the ground as a dense plume of black smoke filled the air.

“At approximately 9:07 am ET (1307 GMT), during a standard prelaunch static fire test for the Amos-6 mission, there was an anomaly at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 resulting in loss of the vehicle,” the firm said.

“Per standard operating procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries.”

Facebook was contracted to use the Amos-6 to provide broadband internet coverage for large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and other remote parts of the world as part of the social media giant’s Internet.org initiative.

“Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well,” Zuckerberg said, referring to the solar-powered plane being developed by Facebook to make the internet available in remote areas.

European satellite operator Eutelsat — Facebook’s partner in the project — said in a statement it was committed to expanding broadband access in Africa despite the loss of the Amos-6.

A NASA spokeswoman told AFP that emergency services at the nearby Kennedy Space Center were monitoring the situation and conducting air quality tests to ensure there is no threat to the health of staff.

Officials at the center advised workers to remain inside until further notice, but Brevard County Emergency Management said there was no threat to the public from the incident.

The Amos-6 was the heaviest payload to date for a SpaceX rocket, with an estimated value of between $200 million-300 million, according to John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The accident- comes just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed after liftoff on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

Before that, SpaceX had logged 18 successful launches of the Falcon 9 — including six of 12 planned supply missions to the ISS carried out as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

It had carried out another eight successful launches since June 2015, including last month when a Falcon 9 successfully placed a Japanese communications satellite in orbit, and then landed intact on a floating drone ship.

Before then the firm lost several rockets as it attempted to land them upright on an ocean platform at the end of a flight — a crucial part of its strategy for reusable spacecraft.

While the blast is likely to disrupt SpaceX plans for six more launches between now and January 2017, experts made clear that such incidents are a normal part of the space learning curve.

“It’s clearly a setback, but how great the setback is and how long the delay, it’s impossible to know until there is more information available,” said Logsdon.

He noted that the launchpad damaged on Thursday was distinct from the one that will serve to launch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, intended to ferry astronauts to the ISS starting in late 2017.

Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy at Warwick Business School, said such setbacks were par for the course — and would not affect SpaceX’s stated long-term goals of slashing the cost of space flight through the use of reusable rockets, and eventually colonizing Mars.

“SpaceX is gathering valuable experience, and each accident brings lessons on how to enhance the integrity of the craft for future missions,” he said.

“Given that SpaceX is working to provide NASA with a way to transport not just cargo, but also astronauts to the International Space Station, it is r six more launches between now and January 2017.

“It’s clearly a setback, but how great the setback is and how long the delay, it’s impossible to know until there is more information available,” said Logsdon.

A NASA spokeswoman told AFP that emergency services at the nearby Kennedy Space Center were monitoring the situation and conducting air quality tests to ensure there is no threat to the health of staff.

Officials at the center advised all staff to remain inside until further notice.

SpaceX had successfully launched a Falcon 9 last month, sending a Japanese communications satellite into orbit and then landing the rocket on a floating drone ship.

The explosion comes just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed just after liftoff, on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

The firm has also lost several rockets as it attempted to land them upright on an ocean platform at the end of a flight.</s>An explosion on the launch site of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is shown in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thursday (Reuters photo)

MIAMI — An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on Thursday on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida during a test, destroying it along with its payload, but causing no injuries, the private space firm said.

The blast marks a major setback for California-based SpaceX and its founder, internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, who wants to revolutionise the launch industry by making rocket components reusable.

A dense plume of black smoke filled the air following the blast, which destroyed the Israeli communications satellite that Falcon had been due to deliver into orbit on Saturday.

Facebook was due to use the Amos-6 satellite to provide broadband internet coverage for swathes of sub-Saharan Africa as part of the social media giant's Internet.org initiative.

The US space agency NASA said the incident took place shortly after 9:00am (1300 GMT).

"SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload," the company said. "Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries."

Brevard County Emergency Management said there was no threat to the public from the incident.

Amos-6 was the heaviest payload to date for a SpaceX rocket, with an estimated value of between $200 and $300 million, according to John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The accident — the second of its kind in the firm's history — is expected to significantly disrupt SpaceX plans for six more launches between now and January 2017.

"It's clearly a setback, but how great the setback is and how long the delay, it's impossible to know until there is more information available," said Logsdon.

A NASA spokeswoman told AFP that emergency services at the nearby Kennedy Space Centre were monitoring the situation and conducting air quality tests to ensure there is no threat to the health of staff.

Officials at the center advised all staff to remain inside until further notice.

SpaceX had successfully launched a Falcon 9 last month, sending a Japanese communications satellite into orbit and then landing the rocket on a floating drone ship.

The explosion comes just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed just after liftoff, on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station.

The firm has also lost several rockets as it attempted to land them upright on an ocean platform at the end of a flight.</s>An explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX during routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday, shaking buildings miles away and sending a thick plume of black smoke pouring into the air.

SpaceX said in a statement there were no injuries, but that an “anomaly” during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and the Israeli communications satellite it had been due to carry into space at the weekend.

A spokesman for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station said there was a “significant” explosion just after 9am ET (2pm irish-time) at Launch Complex 40, which is leased by SpaceX.

“Our emergency management teams are responding right now,” said the spokesman, Bryan Purtell.

The explosion tore through the launch site during a test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the launch of the communications satellite owned by Spacecom which had been scheduled for before dawn on Saturday.

People in buildings several miles from the facility wrote on social media that they felt the blast, and live television images showed thick black smoke coming from the site. Local authorities said residents were not at risk.

“There is NO threat to general public from catastrophic abort during static test fire at SpaceX launch pad,” the Brevard County Emergency Management Office said in a tweet.

Robin Seemangal, a space reporter with the Observer newspaper, quoted a source at the facility who told him it felt like the building they were in had been hit by lightning.

“We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad,” Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source.

It was not immediately known if SpaceX’s launch pad was damaged or what the impact would be on the dozens of NASA and commercial satellite missions on its launch schedule.

SpaceX had recovered from a June 2015 launch accident that destroyed a load of cargo headed for the International Space Station.

The pad where SpaceX’s rocket was being prepared for launch is one of two operated by the company. Its other launch site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of slashing launch costs to make travel to Mars affordable. The company plans to fly its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018 and send humans to Mars as early as 2024.</s>An explosion rocked SpaceX’s launch site in Florida on Thursday morning, destroying a Falcon 9 rocket set for liftoff this weekend and its payload, the company has confirmed.

The explosion occurred at Cape Canaveral Air Force station shortly after 6 a.m. Pacific time, sending dark clouds of smoke into the sky and shaking buildings miles away.

SpaceX said in a statement that while preparing for a static test fire, an “anomaly on the pad resulted in the loss of the vehicle and its payload.” SpaceX was set to launch an Israeli communications satellite this weekend.

Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and no one was injured, SpaceX said.

Kennedy Space Center’s Emergency Operations Center is “monitoring the situation” and is standing by for assistance if required, NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Martin said in a statement.

The explosion could be a huge setback for SpaceX, which this week announced that it had signed its first customer to launch a satellite with a reusable rocket.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has estimated that reusing rockets could eventually cut launch costs 30%.

The Hawthorne company, whose full name is Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has already hit major milestones, proving that it can successfully land its rocket boosters.

The company must prove that it can safely and reliably reuse rockets to fulfill its core mission to increase the frequency and lower the cost of launches.

In June 2015, a SpaceX rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station disintegrated over the Florida coast two minutes after liftoff.

7:37 a.m.: This article was updated with confirmation from SpaceX

7:10 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 6:40 a.m.</s>The 604-ton Falcon 9 rocket was being fueled with a potent mix of liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene propellant when an explosion quickly enveloped the launch pad in flames.

The ensuing fireball delivered a blow to the efforts of two high-profile billionaires: SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

The rocket, scheduled to launch Saturday, was carrying a satellite designed to bring the Internet to remote villages in Africa and help the social media giant expand its global footprint.

Instead, the satellite and rocket were destroyed in several fiery explosions — loud enough to be heard 40 miles away — as wind spread a plume of black smoke so large and thick it showed up on weather radar.

“We heard what sounded like a huge thunder strike,” said Evan Zimny, 23, who works about five miles away in an office building that shuddered from the blast as ceiling tiles fell.

“The building and window shook rapidly and loudly and (that) lasted a couple of seconds,” he said.

There were no reported injuries.

Musk said the explosion took place as the rocket was being fueled for a test ahead of a planned weekend launch. The cause was not immediately known, he said.

But even as the smoke was clearing, the ramifications started to become apparent.

They stretched from SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters to aerospace companies in Israel to rural Africa.

In recent years, the commercial space industry has grown in size and importance. Last year, SpaceX received approval from the Air Force to compete for Pentagon contracts, pitting the firm against United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. that had long enjoyed a monopoly on national security launches.

Several other private companies — including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic — are also racing to launch satellites and tourists into orbit.

“Today’s SpaceX incident — while not a NASA launch — reminds us that spaceflight is challenging,” NASA tweeted. “Our partners learn from each success & setback.”

Industry analysts said the explosion could delay space launches. Saturday’s planned liftoff would have been the ninth by SpaceX in 2016, with eight more planned by the end of the year.

“It’s clear there will be some sort of delay,” said Phil Smith, senior space analyst at the Tauri Group.

The explosion — the second Falcon 9 failure in 14 months for SpaceX — could also be a setback to Musk’s efforts to prove that his company can quickly and safely launch and reuse rockets. Just this week, SpaceX had announced that it had signed its first customer to launch a satellite with a reused booster.

SpaceX, whose full name is Space Exploration Technologies Corp., charges at least $62 million for each launch. This spring, the company landed its first big Pentagon job — an $83 million contract from the Air Force to launch a global positioning system satellite from Cape Canaveral in 2018.

Uzi Rubin, former chief of Israel’s missile defense program, said rocket launches are never foolproof. But major mishaps usually don’t happen during launch preparations, he said.

“The Falcon 9 up till now was very reliable,” Rubin said. “There’s always a chance of failure, but usually it happens after the launch. This time it happened on the launch pad.”

In the long run, however, analysts said there would be few impacts on the burgeoning launch and small satellite industries, as well as on SpaceX.

Bill Ostrove, aerospace and defense analyst at market research firm Forecast International, pointed to SpaceX’s 93 percent launch success rate, which is “right in the ballpark” of the industry’s average of 95 percent.

“Considering they do have a decent success rate, I don’t see much harm being done to the industry as a whole,” he said.

Still, the explosion was another blow to Musk, the Los Angeles entrepreneur who also runs Tesla Motors Inc. He began his summer by learning that federal regulators were investigating the Autopilot feature of the Tesla Model S electric car after a fatal crash.

And SpaceX was still trying to ramp back up after another Falcon 9 rocket exploded in midair minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in June 2015. Lost in the blast was $110 million in cargo for the International Space Station.

After an investigation of that incident, Musk said that the company believed the rocket disintegrated after a small steel band purchased from a subcontractor snapped under pressure.

The explosion caused SpaceX to reduce its launches last year to only six.

Another billionaire’s ambitions also took a hit Thursday.

The Amos-6 satellite sitting atop the SpaceX rocket was going to beam high-speed Internet and other digital services to sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and parts of Europe as part of an effort by Facebook to provide Internet access to poorly connected areas.

“I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent,” Zuckerberg, who was in Africa, said in a Facebook post.

It was the first attempt by the company’s Internet.org initiative to deliver Internet signals from space. But Zuckerberg said Facebook was working on other technologies, such as an unmanned solar-powered plane that can transmit the Internet to remote locations.

“We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided,” he said.

The Amos-6 satellite was a total loss, said Space Communication, the Tel Aviv company that was going to operate it. Known as Spacecom, the company had contracts with the Israeli government to use the satellite, which was meant for broadcast and telecommunications, as well as with Facebook.

Spacecom’s stock fell nearly 9 percent in trading in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

The satellite’s manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries, took out an insurance policy on the Amos-6 worth $285 million — the same amount as the total value of the satellite, according to a person familiar with the matter.

That policy, also known as a marine cargo insurance policy, covers transit and pre-launch processing of the satellite from the factory to the launch site. Spacecom’s insurance policy doesn’t cover risk of loss until the launch.</s>During a pre-launch test this morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft was sitting on a launchpad ahead of a scheduled launch this Saturday to take an AMOS-6 communications satellite into orbit for the Israeli company Spacecom. That satellite is a joint effort between Facebook and France’s Eutelsat to provide internet connectivity to 14 African countries. Some reports indicated that the explosion shook office buildings some distance away.

Engadget reports that SpaceX was static firing the Falcon 9 engines ahead of this weekend’s launch at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), a process that’s standard procedure. During that test, the Air Force Museum at the Kennedy Space Center closes, however SpaceX does have a personnel building close to the launchpad. The Verge reports the US Air Force 45th Space Wing says there no known casualties and there’s not a threat to the general public. Last year, a Falcon 9 broke up shortly after launch on a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX says the explosion was caused by “an anomaly” on the launchpad, but the area was clear so there were no injuries. The company didn’t offer any word on an exact cause and it may be a while before more information is discovered, but the Falcon 9 and its payload, the AMOS-6 satellite, were both destroyed.</s>NASA says SpaceX was conducting a routine test-firing of its rocket when the blast occurred.

An explosion rocked the SpaceX launch site in Florida on Thursday.

NASA says SpaceX was conducting a test-firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred on Thursday morning. The test, considered routine, was in advance of a planned Saturday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Buildings several kilometres away shook from the blast, and multiple explosions continued for several minutes. A cloud of dark smoke filled the overcast sky.

Additional details were not immediately available. But sirens could be heard in the aftermath.

The rocket was supposed to hoist an Israeli satellite this weekend.</s>Smoke rises from a SpaceX launch site Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, at Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA said SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when a blast occurred. (AP Photo/Marcia Dunn)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An explosion has rocked the SpaceX launch site in Florida.

NASA says SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred Thursday morning. The test, considered routine, was in advance of a planned Saturday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Buildings several miles away shook from the blast, and multiple explosions continued for several minutes. A cloud of dark smoke filled the overcast sky.

Additional details were not immediately available. But sirens could be heard in the aftermath.

The rocket was supposed to hoist an Israeli satellite this weekend.</s>A rocket operated by the aerospace company SpaceX has exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral where it was being test-fired ahead of a launch.

The force of the blast shook buildings several miles away and sent a plume of smoke high above the complex.

In a statement, the company blamed the blast on “an anomaly” and said no-one had been injured.

It said the rocket’s payload, a communications satellite due to launch on Saturday, was also destroyed.

Facebook, in partnership with Eutelsat Communications, had been due to use the Israeli-built Amos-6 satellite to deliver broadband internet coverage for swathes of sub-Saharan Africa as part of its Internet.org initiative.

Experts said the satellite was valued at more than $200m (£150m).

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station said a “significant” explosion happened just after 09:00 (14:00 GMT) at Launch Complex 40, which is leased by SpaceX.

“Our emergency management teams are responding right now,” said spokesman Bryan Purtell.

SpaceX is aiming to create a new era of reusable rockets and affordable private space travel and has used its Falcon-9 rocket to take supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).

In December last year, the California-based company successfully landed a Falcon-9 back on Earth after a mission to launch orbiting satellites – a first in rocketry.

It went on to recover five more boosters, with most of them returning to an ocean platform.

The idea is to re-fly these rockets, and the first such “second hand” vehicle is scheduled to launch in October.

SpaceX is run out of Hawthorne near Los Angeles by Elon Musk, who made his fortune with internet companies.

As well as being the rocket company’s CEO, he also heads up the Tesla electric car company.

Whatever the details of what went wrong at the launch-pad, this is bad news for one of the most ambitious-ever space programmes.

SpaceX has big dreams for cheap, frequent and distant space travel. This test-firing was meant to be routine, part of an accelerating series of launches.

Beyond it, SpaceX is looking to make history by re-using one of the massive first stages that was returned to Earth intact. The company is also preparing to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

Most exotic of all, the company’s boss, Elon Musk, is due later this month to unveil his plans for a Mars colony, and how that would take effect.

There had been talk of the first SpaceX unmanned mission to the Red Planet in a couple of years’ time. All its timetables will now be in jeopardy.

The Falcon-9 booster is designed to return to Earth, touching down on land or a floating platform

An employee at the Kennedy Space Center took this image of the blast

For more on this story and video go to: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37247077
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes during a routine firing test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX say there were no injuries, but that an "anomaly" during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and the Israeli Amos-6 communication satellite it was carrying.