On Sunday, Space X's Falcon 9 rocket exploded soon after its launch. The incident has proved taxing for a team of students from the Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis, as their science experiment also blasted in mid-air along with the rocket.

The team of 11 students had built an experiment on bacteria growth prevention. The team wanted to explore the effects of artificial shark skin on bacteria growth in microgravity at the International Space Station.

The students wanted to know as to why bacteria growth is faster in space and how it can be prevented. As per the students, they had to receive data downloads from the ISS three times a week. But they were not aware that their experiment would never reach its destination.

This was the third experiment that Minnehaha Academy has created in space for NASA. The first one was launched in 2013 and involved polymer formation on space hardware. The next one took off in 2014 and was a fluid flow experiment.

Hazen Mayo, one of the students who worked on the experiment, said, "My year's worth of research and collaboration with my teammates has indeed come to a premature and untimely end. I'd rather see it as a lesson that's imperative toward our next great leap forward".

Sunday's blast was second consecutive failure of a cargo ship that was bound for the ISS. Space X has made 12 trips to space and out of them seven trips was under a contract with NASA.