SpaceX Mission Update — The latest SpaceX Mission attempt, which aimed to bring supplies and scientific cargo to the International Space Station, has failed for unknown reason. On Sunday morning, the unmanned Falcon 9 rocket exploded mid-air just two and a half minutes after launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

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Since its 2010 debut, the 13-story reusable Falcon 9 rocket, which was designed to turn itself around after separation and head its way back to make a landing, had flown successfully for 18 times. And under a 15-flight contract worth more than $2 billion, those missions included six station cargo runs for NASA.

The main objective of the latest mission is to deliver a SpaceX Dragon capsule filled with 4,000 pounds of supplies, 30 student projects, two HoloLenses, as well as a docking adapter for the ISS that would allow for future commercial crewed capsules to dock with the station, Popular Mechanics revealed. Unfortunately, the unmanned SpaceX rocket dismantled completely shortly after launch, sending debris out to the sky.

According to NASA, the latest SpaceX mission was a "non-nominal" flight and the rocket had broken up over the range at 2 minutes and 19 seconds into the flight, at an altitude of about 34 kilometers.

"We are disappointed in the loss of the latest SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "However, the astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months."

Bolden added that they will work closely with SpaceX, a company founded and owned by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, to understand what happened. They will also fix the problem and resume the mission.

SpaceX ISS Resupply Mission was the third unmanned cargo mission destined for the ISS that has failed in recent months. But it is the first unsuccessful attempt by SpaceX, CNN Money reported.

Each year, unmanned resupply missions to the International Space Station are carried out multiple times. And so far this year, three spacecrafts have already reached the ISS from Earth. Dragon's mission, on the other hand, marks the third failure in nine months, an unprecedented rate in the space station's history.

Meanwhile, the failed SpaceX ISS Resupply Mission has indeed suffered significant loss and setbacks. And an investigation into the explosion will ground the Falcon 9 rockets for a number of months or so. According to Reuters, a preliminary analysis indicated a problem with the rocket's upper-stage engine.

For now, it wasn't clear what really happened to the SpaceX rocket on Sunday, which is also Musk's 44^th birthday. The failed SpaceX ISS Resupply Mission would have been the seventh such mission to the ISS by Musk's company, and the 20th launch in total for the Falcon program.

TagsSpaceX, Resupply Mission, International Space Station, NASA, outer space