A week ago, the day after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on its Florida launchpad, the company said it had "begun the careful and deliberate process of understanding the causes and fixes" for the incident and promised regular updates.
The next update came Friday. It took the form of a public request for help from SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk:
That was the first in a series of tweets from Musk asking for assistance from all comers, including NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Air Force and anyone else who might have recorded or studied the launchpad "anomaly."
Musk noted, as the company did last week, that the explosion occurred during a "routine" fueling operation.
One unresolved mystery, he noted in his Friday messages, was a "quieter bang sound" that was heard just before the blast that destroyed the Falcon 9 rocket and its payload, an Israeli communications satellite.
Facebook was among the customers who had leased space on the Amos-6 satellite. The Menlo Park-based social media company intended to use the geostationary platform to provide internet service to Africa.
The explosion threatens a series of delays, added costs and other problems for SpaceX and its customers. The CEO of Spacecom, the owner of the destroyed Amos-6 satellite, told Reuters earlier this week that he wanted to see SpaceX achieve "several safe flights" before he'd launch with the company again.
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