SpaceX Finally Knows What Caused its Falcon 9 Rocket to Explode
8th November 2016
No, it wasn’t exposing Elon Musk press releases to daylight.
Yesterday Musk explained to CNBC why it took so long to get to the bottom of the explosion: “It was a really surprising problem. It’s never been encountered before in the history of rocketry.”
The problem has to do with some super-cold oxygen reacting with the carbon fiber composites within the fuel tank.
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Musk didn’t elaborate on how the solid oxygen formed or what happened after that, but the leading theory is that the solid oxygen may have ignited one of three carbon composite helium containers inside the oxygen tank, triggering the explosion that annihilated SpaceX’s launch pad.