The mission was highly classified and expensive, SpaceX tasked with launching an American government satellite into low-orbit.

While we weren’t told much about the payload the Falcon 9 rocket would be carrying, we were told it was called Zuma, which meant many chuckles about how former South African Elon Musk would be sending it into space.

But despite certain details of the launch being shrouded in mystery, SpaceX appeared to have successfully carried the satellite into space from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sunday.

I mean, the whole thing was live-streamed – until it wasn’t:

SpaceX managed to land the booster’s first stage, and continued onto the second stage, which would carry the secretive Zuma to its final destination in low-orbit.

This is where it looks to have all gone downhill.

Although SpaceX has landed Falcon 9 boosters a total of 21 times and celebrated with much public interaction, this time around not only did they fail to officially confirm the success of their latest mission, reports RT, but have pretty much gone radio silent.

Until we got this nugget of information:

On Monday, lawmakers were informed that the mission was “a total loss” and the payload plummeted back into the atmosphere when it failed to detach from the rocket, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

Worth billions of dollars, it’s unclear what went wrong, and we all know a high-level of blame game will be played.

Aerospace and defence company Northrup Grumman – who worked on the mission with SpaceX on behalf of the government – told Space.com the payload’s function was “restricted” and was being fired into “low-Earth orbit.”

However, the failed mission could be devastating for SpaceX. Facing competition for government launches from United Launch Alliance, an existing launch provider jointly operated by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Elon must be shitting himself.

No wonder there has been no Twitter activity from the entrepreneur.

[source:newsweek&rt]