Cape Canaveral, Florida: An explosion rocked the launch site for Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday and black smoke could be seen rising into the air from the facility, multiple U.S. media reports said.
It was not clear if anyone was hurt by the blast, and a spokesman for SpaceX did not immediately return a call for comment. A spokesman for NASA said he had no information and that the agency was not involved.
Media reports said the explosion took place during a test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the scheduled launch of an Israeli communications satellite on Saturday.
Weltraumrakete in Cape Canaveral explodiert. https://t.co/vdILEk7EDE #SpaceX @SpaceX @NASAKennedy pic.twitter.com/Ct9lmYYmAL— Berliner Zeitung (@berlinerzeitung) September 1, 2016
Stephanie Martin, with Kennedy Space Center Public Information, told CNN the blast happened at the Space Launch Complex 40.
That facility is used by SpaceX to launch rockets that carry supplies to the International Space Station as well as satellites. SpaceX did not have a launch scheduled for Thursday morning.
Martin referred further questions on the explosion to SpaceX Public Affairs.
Response teams at the base were working to confirm if there were any injuries, Brian Purtell, the public information officer for the 45th Space Wings, was quoted by CNN.
People in buildings several miles from the facility wrote on social media that they felt the blast, and posted images showing flames and a plume of thick black smoke coming from the site.
No other details were immediately available.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of slashing launch costs to make travel to Mars affordable through the use of reusable rockets. The company plans to fly its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018 and send humans to Mars as early as 2024.
First launch of flight-proven first stage will use CRS-8 booster that delivered Dragon to @Space_Station in April pic.twitter.com/UsqWeNBEK2— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 30, 2016
