SpaceX just blew up another rocket during a routine test

An unmanned rocket exploded on the launch site of Elon Musk's SpaceX on Thursday. The private aerospace manufacturer was running a test of the Falcon 9 missile ahead of a launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this weekend.

The blast set off multiple extended explosions, shook nearby buildings, and blanketed the area in black smoke, the Associated Press reported. The Air Force is responding on the scene. "There are no known casualties. There's no threat to public safety and our emergency management teams are on site responding," a representative of the 45th Space Wing, the nearest USAF unit, told the Verge.

SpaceX was set to launch the Amos 6, a satellite belonging to the Israeli communications operator Spacecom that, among other things, was supposed to allow Facebook to beam broadband to undeveloped areas of Africa as part of its Internet.org initiative.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacted to the loss of the $195 million satellite on a trip, ironically, through Africa. "As I'm here in Africa I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent," he wrote in a Facebook post.

Statement on this morning's anomaly pic.twitter.com/3Xm2bRMS7T
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 1, 2016

The fateful test on Thursday was a routine procedure in which the rocket is strapped down while the engines fire up.

It's been a rough year for Musk's private rocket firm: In January, SpaceX attempted to land a rocket upright on a barge in the Pacific Ocean, but it tipped over as it touched down. In June 2015, a SpaceX rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station disintegrated over the Florida coast two minutes after liftoff.

SpaceX succeeded in launching and returning a rocket booster at Kennedy Space Center in July.

These rockets are the boosters that get spacecraft airborne and are designed to be returned to the launch pad to be used again. SpaceX boosters cost between $60 million and $90 million, so re-using them is key element of reducing the cost of delivering satellites into orbit or supplies to the International Space Station.

All of SpaceX's missions thusfar have been unmanned, but the private firm plans to start ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017, while NASA focuses on deep space missions as part of its next-generation Space Launch System.