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Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. SpaceX operates from many pads, on the East Coast of the US they operate from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. They also operate from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, usually for polar launches. Another launch site is being developed at Boca Chica, Texas.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the ninth Dragon spacecraft on the seventh operational cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station as part of the NASA cargo resupply contract. It was meant to deliver the IDA-1 segment of the new ISS International Docking System. The second stage ruptured due to an overpressurization event and the launch vehicle disintegrated at T+139 seconds. According to SpaceX investigation, "Preliminary analysis suggests the overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank was initiated by a flawed piece of support hardware (a “strutâ€) inside the second stage."
Serial C109
Launch Crew Count 0
Status Destroyed
Landing Time 2015-06-28T14:23:00+0000
Height 68.40 Meters
Max Stages 2
Mass To GTO 4850 kg
Liftoff Thrust 5883 kN
Diameter 3.65 Meters
Mass To LEO 13150 kg
Liftoff Mass 506 Tonnes
Launch Success 14
Consecutive Success 1
Maiden Flight 2013-09-29
Launch Failures 1
Serial B1018
Status lost
Flight Proven Yes
Flights 1
Landing Attempt Yes
Landing Success No
Type ASDS
Location OCISLY
Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of flights awarded by NASA for the delivery of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station.The first CRS contracts were signed in 2008 and awarded $1.6 billion to SpaceX for twelve cargo Dragon and $1.9 billion to Orbital Sciences for eight Cygnus flights, covering deliveries to 2016. The Falcon 9 and Antares rockets were also developed under the CRS program to deliver cargo spacecraft to the ISS.