Exploded SpaceX rocket is also a blow to Facebook and NASA

The explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Thursday morning during a pre-launch fueling operation is a setback for Elon Musk's commercial operations, but also for NASA's plan to use SpaceX and Boeing to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station and Facebook's push to bring internet connectivity to sub-Saharan Africa. Nobody was reported injured during the dramatic explosion, but the payload included a $200 million Israeli communications satellite that Facebook planned to use in CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Internet.org initiative, which he is currently promoting in Kenya.

On Facebook, Zuckerberg said he is "deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite," while SpaceX president Gwynn Shotwell pledged "we will carefully investigate and address this issue." Musk said on Twitter that the problem seemed to be tied to the upper-stage oxygen tank.

SpaceX has successfully launched 27 Falcon 9 rockets, including eight in 2016, with 10 more scheduled by year's end. This is its second exploded rocket, and the first that destructed before liftoff. "SpaceX is running a punishing schedule," Scott Pace, the director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, tells The New York Times. "There is probably some human factor involved here." Still, Thursday's was a rare event, says Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tracing the last launchpad explosion at Cape Canaveral back to 1959. You can watch Thursday's explosion, captured by US Launch Report, in the NBC News video below.

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NASA had hoped that SpaceX would start transporting astronauts to the ISS by the end of the year, but that was unlikely even before Thursday's explosion. NASA inspector general Paul K. Martin said in a report coincidentally issued Thursday that SpaceX and Boeing probably won't carry astronauts before the second half of 2018. NASA looked on the bright side: "Today's incident — while it was not a NASA launch — is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but our partners learn from each success and setback."