NASA Rocket Explodes Shortly After Launch

NASA's Antares rocket, headed to the International Space Station, exploded shortly after launch Tuesday night.

The rocket was unmanned, and NASA officials said no personnel appeared to be in danger.

However, there was "significant" property damage.

The explosion lit up the sky at the launch pad in Virginia and occurred about 6 seconds after liftoff.

The Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft were set to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET. It was set to carry some 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station.

Comments

[Sevo]

Additional info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares_(rocket)

[JeremyR]

Basically it uses old Soviet rocket engines from the 1960s.

[Jake W]

I thought just about all of our rockets and designs were of that vintage still, less the Space Shuttle, which was still quite old when it retired. No?

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[UnCivilServant]

The BBC was covering this live and put the video clip from their coverage on their article. The complete lack of audible reaction from the voiceover person and the NASA controllers is somewhat surreal. Though the voiceover newscaster was on mute at the time of the failure, and the NASA guy did have to keep repeating 'remain at your consoles' so some people in the control center were clearly in a bit of a fit.

[FreeRadical]

I don't how the press is lazy and calls this "NASA's rocket". It's a privately developed rocket by Orbital Sciences. NASA has a contract with them to supply the Space Station. NASA is more than happy to let people believe it creates everything it uses.

[Jake W]

It "creates" it by providing the money, just like government spending "creates" jobs.

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