SpaceX blast kills Zuck's sat

A launchpad explosion at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida during a SpaceX rocket test has just destroyed Facebook's $200m Amos-6 satellite.

Massive plumes of black smoke were seen streaming across the Air Force base. Elon Musk's aerospace company Space X was putting one of its Falcon 9 rockets through its paces when it blew up, taking out the onboard Facebook-Eutelsat bird. The Falcon 9 was due to launch the Amos-6 into orbit.

Space X says there were no injuries, and called the explosion an "anomaly". The test vehicle and payload, however, were destroyed in the explosion.

Statement on this morning's anomaly pic.twitter.com/3Xm2bRMS7T

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 1, 2016

So per @SpaceX, the issue was not with the rocket itself, but a pad anomaly. Bad news is that the payload (Amos 6 satellite) was lost.

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) September 1, 2016

Images of the @SpaceX rocket explosion at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station: https://t.co/dPKgujUgnd (Al Barrett) pic.twitter.com/Sjgxwlou6D

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) September 1, 2016

Click here for the full story and a video of the explosion. ®