10/30/2014 AT 09:20 AM EDT
Tuesday's big news in space exploration was that the NASA Antares rocket, an unmanned spacecraft due to bring supplies to the International Space Station, exploded shortly after its takeoff from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
'There has been a vehicle anomaly,' Orbital Sciences, the contractor supplying the rocket, Tweeted, later issuing a statement to say: 'The vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure.'
This video, shot by Brian Barrett Photography, shows the rocket explode into a ball of flames and crash into the ground. Its sound can be heard in the video.
The explosion of the 140-foot rocket lit up the night sky and raining flaming debris on the launch site. No one was injured, but the $200 million-plus mission was a total loss.
The blast not only incinerated the cargo - 2½ tons of space station food, clothes, equipment and science experiments dreamed up by schoolchildren - but dealt a setback to the commercial spaceflight effort championed by NASA and the White House even before the shuttle was retired.
It was the first failure after an unbroken string of successful commercial cargo flights to the space station since 2012 - three by Orbital and five by SpaceX, the other U.S. company hired by NASA to deliver supplies.
Although the cause of the blast is still unknown, several outside experts cast suspicion on the 1960s-era Russian-built engines used in the rocket's first stage. Orbital Sciences chairman David Thompson himself said the Russian engines had presented 'some serious technical and supply challenges in the past.'
* Reporting by ASSOCIATED PRESS
Entities 0 Name: Orbital Sciences Count: 2 1 Name: NASA Count: 2 2 Name: White House Count: 1 3 Name: Orbital Count: 1 4 Name: NASA Antares Count: 1 5 Name: Brian Barrett Photography Count: 1 6 Name: NASA Wallops Flight Facility Count: 1 7 Name: Virginia Count: 1 8 Name: SpaceX Count: 1 9 Name: David Thompson Count: 1 10 Name: U.S. Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1oXv7fs Title: Unmanned Antares rocket explodes on launch Description: An unmanned commercial rocket headed for the International Space Station to deliver supplies exploded just after launching Tuesday, filling the sky with a massive fireball. The Antares rocket supplied by contractor Orbital Sciences blew up moments after liftoff at NASA's space launch facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the space agency said.
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