The explosion of a rocket that rocked Florida’s Space Coast and destroyed a satellite has the Israeli company that owned the satellite trying to figure out what happened and considering ways to recover the money it lost.
The satellite had been scheduled to launch into space early Saturday morning.
The satellite was to help Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg provide Internet to poorly connected areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
A statement from Spacecom said that it has been working on its next steps since the SpaceX rocket exploded on a Florida launch pad at 9:07 a.m. Thursday morning.
Reports have placed the value of the satellite at $200 million.
“Spacecom has crafted a plan of action which represents the foundation upon which we shall recover AMOS-6’s loss,” Spacecom CEO David Pollack said in the release.
Included within the effort is the coordination of replacing the AMOS-6 satellite and finding partners for that.
The AMOS-6 communications satellite was set to launch early Saturday morning aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket but was destroyed when the rocket exploded on the launch pad.
The explosion happened as the rocket was being filled with propellant for the mission, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter this weekend.
The launch pad was clear at the time and no injuries were reported.
AMOS 6 was set to give Spacecom new bandwidth to bolster its coverage in parts of Europe. Satellites can beam bandwidth to different regions of the world, depending upon their positioning in space.
AMOS-6 was set to replace the aging AMOS-2, which launched in 2003.
The company will relocate some of the expanded bandwidth that had been expected to be offered by AMOS-6 to its AMOS-3 satellite.
It was less clear what the company would do when it ran out of space on AMOS-3.
The company said it would try to find bandwidth on other satellites.
Spaceflight Now, an online news outlet that covers the space industry, reported Monday that Spacecom could receive more than $200 million in insurance payouts for the satellite.