WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. (NewsChannel 8/AP/CNN) - The unmanned commercial supply Antares rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site along the eastern Virginia coast.
Explosion moments after the rocket's launch. (Photo: NASA via NewsChannel 8)No deaths or injuries were reported following the first catastrophic launch in NASA's commercial spaceflight effort, and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities at Wallops Island.
'There was failure on launch. There was no indicated loss of life.There was significant property and vehicle damage. Mission control is trying to assess what went wrong,' Jay Bolden, a NASA spokesman, told CNN.
The accident at Orbital Sciences Corp.'s launch complex at Wallops Island was sure to draw criticism over the space agency's growing reliance on private U.S. companies in this post-shuttle effort.
NASA is paying billions of dollars to Orbital Sciences and the SpaceX company to make station deliveries, and it's counting on SpaceX and Boeing to start flying U.S. astronauts to the orbiting lab as early as 2017. NASA said there nothing on the lost flight that was urgently needed by the six people living on the space station.
Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket blew up over the launch complex, just six seconds after liftoff at approximately 6:22 p.m. EST. Flames could be seen shooting into the sky as the sun set. There was no hint of any trouble until the rocket exploded.
Ed Encina was among those who watched it happen from about three miles away in the remote resort area.
'You immediately thought that everything was fine, because you see the big launch, and it brightened up the sky,' said Encina, a Baltimore Sun newspaper reporter. 'And then all of a sudden, you see a big fireball.'
Encina also recalled a loud boom that caused 'your feet (to) shake a little bit,' as well as flames enveloping a roughly 100-yard area around the launch pad in a marshy area with brush.
Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, explained that the colossal fire was to be expected.
'It takes a lot of propellant to take a spacecraft of that size moving 25 times the speed of sound,' Kelly told CNN, explaining how fast the rocket should have gone on its way to the space station. 'So when it fails, it's usually pretty catastrophic.'
This was the second launch attempt for the mission. Monday evening's try was thwarted by a stray sailboat in the rocket's danger zone. The restrictions are in case of just such an accident that occurred Tuesday.
'We will understand what happened - hopefully soon - and we'll get things back on track,' Orbital Sciences' executive vice president Frank Culbertson told his team an hour after the failure. 'We've all seen this happen in our business before, and we've all seen the teams recover from this, and we will do the same.'
The roomful of engineers and technicians were ordered to maintain all computer data for the ensuing investigation. Culbertson advised his staff not to talk to news reporters and to refrain from speculating among themselves.
'Definitely do not talk outside of our family,' said Culbertson, a former astronaut who once served on the space station.
It was the fourth Cygnus bound for the orbiting lab; the first flew just over a year ago.
The Cygnus cargo ship was loaded with 5,000 pounds of experiments and equipment and the Russian Space Agency was proceeding with its own supply run on Wednesday.
But the scientists and students behind all the science research on board were surely devastated. About one-third of the contents of the Cygnus involved science research. Among the instruments that were lost: a meteor tracker and 32 mini research satellites, along with numerous experiments compiled by schoolchildren.
The two Americans, three Russians and one German on the orbiting lab were informed promptly of the accident.
Until Tuesday, all of the supply missions by the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences and California-based SpaceX had been near-flawless.
President Barack Obama has long championed this commercial effort, urging that NASA focus its human spaceflight effort less on nearby orbit and more on destinations like asteroids and Mars.
'We are with you OrbitalSciences and NASA,' former astronaut Leland Melvin said via Twitter.
Entities 0 Name: NASA Count: 8 1 Name: Orbital Sciences Count: 4 2 Name: Cygnus Count: 3 3 Name: WALLOPS ISLAND Count: 3 4 Name: CNN Count: 2 5 Name: Encina Count: 2 6 Name: U.S. Count: 2 7 Name: Culbertson Count: 2 8 Name: SpaceX Count: 2 9 Name: Va. Count: 1 10 Name: Jay Bolden Count: 1 11 Name: Russian Space Agency Count: 1 12 Name: Mark Kelly Count: 1 13 Name: Orbital Sciences Corp. Count: 1 14 Name: Virginia Count: 1 15 Name: Leland Melvin Count: 1 16 Name: Antares Count: 1 17 Name: Frank Culbertson Count: 1 18 Name: Boeing Count: 1 19 Name: Barack Obama Count: 1 20 Name: Kelly Count: 1 21 Name: Baltimore Sun Count: 1 22 Name: Ed Encina Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1wDukjJ Title: Orbital Picks up Pieces, Musk Reacts After Rocket Explosion Description: No one was hurt in yesterday's explosion, although it's a setback for Orbital Sciences--and one that is bound to draw criticism. An unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site in Virginia.
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