The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft broke apart shortly after liftoff at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in late June due to a strut that snapped free. The rocket and spacecraft disintegrated minutes after their launch on a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

“The investigation remains ongoing,” says Elon Musk, CEO. He says this is a preliminary assessment.

SpaceX’s CRS-7 mission would have been the company's eighth mission to the ISS, and its seventh commercial resupply mission for NASA to the space station.

The mission was to use Dragon’s unpressurized trunk to deliver the first of two international docking adapters to enable future commercial crew spacecraft, including the SpaceX Crew Dragon, to dock to the station.

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