SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blows up on Florida launch pad

Some bad news for SpaceX this morning as a rocket they were testing blew on a Cape Canaveral launch pad in Florida. SpaceX says no one was hurt. In a statement, SpaceX said that the rocket was undergoing a standard pre-launch firing test when there was “an anomaly” on the pad resulting in the loss of the Falcon 9 rocket and the payload, which was a satellite for Israeli firm Spacecom. It was due to launch Saturday. SpaceX is in a bit of a space race with NASA and other firms, such as United Launch Alliance, and has been successfully launching and landing its Falcon 9 rockets as of late, although they did lose a rocket when it exploded high in the atmosphere in July of last year. That unmanned mission was on its way to the International Space Station. SpaceX has a nearly billion-dollar contract with NASA to get supplies to the station and satellites into orbit. SpaceX is due to begin sending astronauts to the ISS soon, and their Dragon crew capsules do feature an escape system to protect astronauts in the event of a rocket explosion. We just hope they never have to use it. An investigation by NASA and SpaceX is under way and there’s been no early word on what may have caused the explosion. SUBSCRIBE FOR THE LATEST VIDEOS http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=DigitalTrends VISIT DIGITAL TRENDS http://www.digitaltrends.com/ CHECK OUT OUR LATEST PODCAST http://www.digitaltrends.com/podcasts/ FOLLOW US! https://www.facebook.com/digitaltrends https://twitter.com/digitaltrends https://www.instagram.com/digitaltrends https://plus.google.com/+digitaltrends/posts