Breaking: SpaceX Explosion Fails Facebook Plan for Expanding Internet in Africa
Breaking: SpaceX Explosion Fails Facebook Plan for Expanding Internet in Africa. The FB, Tech30 satellite explosion of Facebook Inc. has given the company a huge setback as it aimed to provide internet connectivity to the sub-Saharan Africa. On Thursday morning, this rocket exploded at its Cape Canaveral launch pad during refueling for preparation of static fire.
This satellite was a joint venture of Facebook and a French satellite operator called “Eutelsat Communications SA” and was using SpaceX launching Pad. It was scheduled to be launched on coming Saturday. The explosion of rocket occurred during a pre-launch test yesterday.
Breaking: SpaceX Explosion Fails Facebook Plan for Expanding Internet in Africa
This was Facebook’s first satellite and was part of the Facebook’s Internet.org project that aims to connect the unconnected population of world.
Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates Inc., a telecom consulting firm in Menlo Park, Calif said that:
“The satellite would have reached a few hundred thousand people in sub-Saharan Africa. It would have reached more than a dozen countries.”
He also added that:
“It’s a big, complicated satellite as its cost estimates to more than $200 million to build.”
Mark Zuckerberg, who is presently in Kenya, become deeply sad by the great failure of Internet.org satellite. SpaceX is investigating about the reasons behind this failure.
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