Shortly after reports surfaced on Monday that the private rocket company SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket may have blown up in space, SpaceX came forward to clear the air and caution a bit of patience — and founder and billionaire Elon Musk offered an outright denial.
The Russian and International space blog Zarya reported that something may have been amiss following the unmanned rocket’s successful delivery and deployment of the Cassiope Satellite payload on Sunday.
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The site pointed to Space-Track, which tracks space debris, and noted that initial readings pointed to roughly 20 space objects instead of the expected six.
In a written response to Mashable, Musk denied this report.
"There was definitely no explosion of any kind," wrote Musk. "Falcon 9 released all satellites safely in their intended orbits. During venting to safe the stage, some foil insulation on the engine came loose. This is very lightweight, so will quickly reenter and burn up, but it is reflective on radar."
Musk added that he thinks there may be something else at play in these reports: "The Russians are our main competitors, so I would take what they say with a grain of salt."
SpaceX representatives also told Mashable in an email that those SpaceTrack readings may not be accurate.
"We have no reason to believe there was an explosion of any kind," they wrote. "Based on previous launch experiences, we do know it’s common that the first measurements from Space-Track are not very accurate and sometimes mixed up ... usually takes a few days for them to sort it all out and that’s with fewer objects to track.”
They added that SpaceX is still sifting through a tremendous amount of data. “[We’re] not exactly sure when that process will be complete, but we’ll release our findings when it is," they wrote.
Previously, the Falcon 9 delivered the SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft into space, where it successfully rendezvoused with the International Space Station (ISS), a first for a privately-built spacecraft. Eventually the Falcon and Dragon will deliver astronauts to the ISS.
You can relive the Falcon 9 launch below:

Image: SpaceX