Just after T+2 minutes, the NASA announcer says "Everything coming back shows the vehicle on course, on track.” The Falcon 9 then appears to explode.

A strut in an upper stage propellant tank that failed at a fraction of its rated strength is the leading explanation for the June 28 loss of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the company’s chief executive said July 20.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...