SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Explosion 'Cause Unknown', Says Elon Musk

SpaceX came up empty Monday in its search to figure out why an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket exploded minutes after blasting off from a Nasa launchpad with a load of space-bound cargo.

The US-made rocket, which was carrying 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of supplies aboard the Dragon cargo ship, blew up in a cloud of smoke on Sunday, raining down in pieces over the Atlantic Ocean and Florida coast.

"Cause still unknown after several thousand engineering-hours of review," CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter early Monday.

He said experts were now focusing on the final milliseconds of the flight in order to determine a cause.

The rocket failure was the third in a series of cargo disasters in the past eight months.

Skies were sunny and clear for the 10:21am EDT Sunday (2:21pm GMT, or 7:51pm IST) launch of the gleaming white Falcon 9 rocket that was meant to propel the Dragon cargo ship on a routine supply mission, the seventh for SpaceX so far.

But two minutes, 19 seconds into the flight, contact was lost. Live television images from SpaceX's webcast and Nasa television showed a huge puff of smoke billowing outward for several seconds, and then tiny bits of the rocket falling like confetti against a backdrop of blue sky.

Later, on Twitter, Musk said the Falcon 9 "experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown," referring to the phase of flight before the cargo ship would have been able to separate from the first stage of the rocket and reach orbit.

Written with inputs from AFP