Updated with video below.
An unmanned SpaceX rocket carrying supplies and scientific experiments for the International Space Station broke up this morning shortly after launching from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The live webcast of the launch showed the Falcon 9 rocket splitting apart around 2 minutes, 19 seconds into the mission.
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/615166043762376705/photo/1
Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown. Will provide more info as soon as we review the data.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2015
There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2015
The CRS-7 launch was SpaceX’s seventh official commercial resupply mission for NASA. It was considered especially critical given the failure of a Russian resupply mission in April and the explosion of an Orbital Sciences rocket in October.
In addition to critical cargo, the launch included two Microsoft HoloLens holographic headsets, which were to be used to connect ground-based experts with orbiting astronauts to work through complex tasks on the Space Station.
SpaceX had also planned to attempt again to recover the Falcon 9 rocket using a vertical landing on a platform at sea. Two previous attempts were unsuccessful.
Update, 8:25 a.m. Here’s an archive of the official SpaceX webcast. The incident takes place at 23:45 in this video, 2:19 into the mission.
Update, 10:16 a.m. At a news conference, NASA officials said all safety protocols and procedures were followed properly, and the incident does not appear to have been caused by negligence. The crew on the ISS has enough supplies for the time being. There’s a second docking and communications systems already in existence for future commercial crew flights, to replace the one lost on this flight.
“This doesn’t change our plans” for future commercial crew flights, said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, during the news conference. “It’s a hiccup. It’s certainly a time to pause … but no, I don’t anticipate any significant changes.”
Here’s the full video of the news conference.