Falcon 9 Explosion: Elon Musk Delayed Autopilot Update For SpaceX Investigation?

Elon Musk, who has been delaying the Autopilot update and had been absent from social media for the last one week, appears to have been busy with the investigation of the fireball that had once been a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its payload — a communication satellite.

In the early hours of Friday morning, or shortly after midnight on the West Coast, Musk took to Twitter to post a series of updates about the ongoing investigation, and called the accident “the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.”

He also thanked NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (though he tagged the wrong Twitter handle) and the U.S. Air Force for their advice, and asked people to submit their recordings of the event to help with the investigation.

He also referred to his much-anticipated and much-delayed Autopilot update.

The Falcon 9 rocket had exploded on the morning of Sept. 1 while at the launch pad at the SpaceX launch facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The company said at the time that the incident, which it called an anomaly, “originated around the upper stage oxygen tank and occurred during propellant loading of the vehicle.”

SpaceX has two other launch pads, one in Florida and the other in California, and said it is “confident the two launch pads can support our return to flight and fulfil our upcoming manifest needs.”