Pentagon refuses to say if secret Zuma satellite failed

The mystery surrounding the fate of a secret military satellite deepened today when the Pentagon refused to answer even simple questions about whether the mission to launch it had gone awry. On Sunday, private space firm SpaceX blasted a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying the secret government satellite, known as Zuma. US media this week reported that the billion-dollar payload did not make it into orbit and was presumed to have been lost. SpaceX said Tuesday that the rocket worked fine, but its statement left open the possibility that something could have gone wrong after the launch. A top secret billion-dollar spy satellite plummeted into the Indian Ocean after a botched SpaceX mission over the weekend, but Elon Musk's company has insisted they are not to blame.