SpaceX just made history.

[jakesford]

Both Blue Origin and SpaceX are doing amazing shit, granted they have different goals and scale but both are impressive.

[jw33]

Attempting to land on ground tonight

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

[Strychnine]

Attempting to land on ground tonight

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

SpaceX on twitter

Falcon 9 first stage has landed at LZ-1

[jw33]

Yep, they made it look easy tonight.

[Strychnine]

Woops.

This happened this morning:

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, satellite destroyed in explosion

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its pad during a test Thursday morning at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. No one was injured.

Witnesses reported seeing a fireball, hearing multiple explosions, feeling shock waves in buildings several miles away at Kennedy Space Center and seeing a plume of smoke rising from Launch Complex 40 just after 9 a.m.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said around 1 p.m. that a failure occurred while the rocket was being fueled for a test-firing of its main engines, part of preparations for a planned early Saturday launch of a commercial communications satellite in which Facebook had a stake.

"Originated around upper stage oxygen tank," Musk said on Twitter. "Cause still unknown. More soon."

Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation. Originated around upper stage oxygen tank. Cause still unknown. More soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2016

Earlier, SpaceX confirmed that the Amos-6 communications satellite owned by Spacecom, an Israeli company, also was destroyed.

Facebook had planned to use some of the satellite's capacity to expand its Internet.org initiative in Africa. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in Africa promoting the satellite's benefits ahead of the upcoming launch.

"I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was in Africa promoting the satellite's benefits, in a post on his Facebook page. "We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided."

[jw33]

"I said to start the first stage engines, not the second!"

[Baba Ganoush]

Destroyed a Facebook satalite? Shucks!

[CJ]

I like how he worded it, "SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite."

[helosailor]

Looks like someone hit the starter when it was already running.

Probably had Eddie Garlick in the control room.

[1carcrazyguy]

Can you say.....KA BOOM......

[Nash B.]

Sponsored by Glock

[Grimpala]

So people can't get clean water, reliable food, or medicines, but hey!, let's give em facebook.

[zachary]

I would guess someone did not want the whole world to be connected...

[Strychnine]

I would guess someone did not want the whole world to be connected...

Occam's Razor, dude.

Bill Ostrove, an aerospace and defense analyst at Forecast International, said SpaceX's reliability with the Falcon 9 is 93%, which is "right in the ballpark" of the industry average of 95%

Or not...
Did UFO cause Space X explosion? Shock claims of anti-Facebook alien interference

[Sgt Beavis]

SpaceX just successfully RE-LAUNCHED and RE-LANDED one of their recycled 1st stage boosters. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just entered the New Space Age.

Oh, and they successfully deployed the satellite too.