Although Mark Zuckerberg sufficed with a ‘deeply disappointed’ as the SpaceX rocket carrying his dreams of the internet for all erupted in flames, the Israeli satellite operator Spacecom, whose satellite Facebook was using, was not so magnanimous in its reaction.
The SpaceX rocket exploded last Thursday on Cape Canaveral launch pad destroying its payload. As a result, Spacecom has requested the Elon Musk enterprise to cough up $50 million or offer a free ride on a future rocket.
Apart from the demand of $50 million from SpaceX, the Israeli space firm will also collect $205 million from the manufacturers of the unfortunate satellite, Israel Aircraft Industries.
Facebook has yet to announce how it plans to deal with the incident. Notably, Spacecom has been in this business for more than two decades while Zuckerberg is brand new to the satellite industry and had pinned his hopes on the Spacecom satellite to bring free internet to a large part of the African continent.