Just a little bit over a week after SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was destroyed in a launch pad explosion during testing on September 1, the firm is already gearing up for its "Return to Flight" launch as early as November of this year, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday. However, the catastrophic failure that took place without warning still remains a mystery.
The explosion in Pad 4 caused the total destruction of both the SpaceX rocket as well as the AMOS-6 Israeli communications satellite payload, amounting to a total of $260 million in damages.
In a World Satellite Business Week Conference panel discussion, Shotwell spoke about the firm's plans to return to flight: "We're anticipating getting back to flight, being down for about three months, so getting back to flight in November, the November timeframe."
While preparations for the resurgence of the rocket are currently underway, SpaceX is still seeking to determine the root cause of the failure, which certainly must be fully determined, corrected and rectified before any new Falcon 9 launches can actually occur.
Investigators labeled the occurrence as the "most difficult and complex failure" in its history, said SpaceX CEO and Founder Elon Musk in a series of update tweets on September 9.
The origins of the explosion are currently ongoing, though present findings point to one of the final stages close to the liquid oxygen tank in the middle of test operations - referred to as a "hot fire engine ignition test," part of the Merlin 1D engine's nine stages. The explosion took place juse before engineers have loaded liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene propellants both used to power the Falcon 9 for the static fire test.
The launch is set to take place in SpaceX's other Florida Space Coast launch pad, which is the former Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
