SpaceX finally reveals cause of April spacecraft explosion

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Author: Loren Grush

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SpaceX says it has figured out what caused one of its spacecraft to explode during a ground test in April. A valve accidentally leaked some of the vehicle’s propellant, starting a chain reaction that caused the spacecraft to burst apart. Now that the cause has been identified, SpaceX says it is replacing these parts in all future versions of the vehicle to make sure this explosive leak doesn’t happen again.

The spacecraft that SpaceX lost was a test version of the company’s Crew Dragon, a capsule that’s being built for NASA to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. This particular capsule was the very first Crew Dragon that SpaceX had ever launched into space. In March, the vehicle — without a crew — successfully...

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