CEO and founder Elon Musk responded after a sudden explosion rocked SpaceX’s testing facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, on Monday afternoon.
The company’s Super Heavy Booster — designed to help forward Musk’s dream of eventually colonizing Mars — was the subject of Monday’s test, and a livestream from NASA Space Flight captured video of the explosion.
Managing editor Chris Bergin shared the video along with the comment, “Holy moly. Well, that was unexpected.”
Musk replied, “Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.”
Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
Bergin added a second video clip from after the explosion, adding, “Booster looks OK. Now depress venting. RIP Air Duct Line. PS The time of the event was 4:20 CDT of course.”
Booster looks OK. Now depress venting. RIP Air Duct Line.
PS The time of the event was 4:20PM CDT of course. 😅 pic.twitter.com/qbRaZYYnRQ
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) July 11, 2022
NASA Space Flight commentators said that the explosion had not been planned, according to a report from Business Insider — and Musk’s response appeared to support that claim. SpaceX reportedly did not announce any scheduled engine test-fire ahead of time the way the company usually did, the outlet reported.
Earlier reports suggested that the booster was to be used to fly a rocket into Earth’s orbit in July, but the appropriate testing does not appear to have been done in order to meet such a short deadline.
Musk has also been in recent headlines after sending a letter Friday — via attorneys — demanding to be released from his $44 billion offer to buy social media platform Twitter. Musk claimed that despite numerous requests, Twitter has repeatedly failed to provide him with information regarding the number of accounts on the platform that are fake/”bot” accounts.
“Notwithstanding these repeated requests over the past two months, Twitter has still failed to provide much of the data and information responsive to Mr. Musk’s repeated requests,” the letter stated.
The deal included a $1 billion “break-up fee” if either party were to back out of the contract, but Twitter has promised to hold Musk to the original agreement.
Board chair Bret Taylor tweeted, “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”