Unmanned NASA-contracted rocket explodes; damage is 'significant'
By Greg Botelho and Dave Alsup, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/28/us/nasa-rocket-explodes/index.html#
(CNN) -- An unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded early Tuesday evening along the eastern Virginia coast, causing a huge fireball but no apparent deaths.
Mark Kelly: This is a 'risky business'
Raw video of unmanned rocket explosion
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/28/us/nasa-rocket-explodes/index.html#
(CNN) -- An unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded early Tuesday evening along the eastern Virginia coast, causing a huge fireball but no apparent deaths.
According to NASA,
the Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft
were set to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET from the Wallops Flight Facility
along the Atlantic Ocean. It was set to carry some 5,000 pounds of
supplies and experiments to the International Space Station.
"There was failure on launch," NASA spokesman Jay Bolden said. "There was no indicated loss of life."
Bolden added, "There was significant property and vehicle damage. Mission control is trying to assess what went wrong."
Mark Kelly: This is a 'risky business'
Raw video of unmanned rocket explosion
Video shows the rocket
rising into the air for a few seconds before an explosion. It then
plummets back to Earth, causing more flames as it hits the ground. NASA tweeted that the failure occurred six seconds after launch.
The launch had been
scheduled for Monday, but that was scrubbed "because of a boat down
range in the trajectory Antares would have flown had it lifted off,"
according to NASA.
Just before Tuesday's
liftoff, the space agency reported "100% favorable" weather and "no
technical concerns with the rocket or spacecraft being worked."
About one-third of the
spacecraft's cargo consisted of material for scientific investigations,
including a Houston school's experiment on pea growth and a study on
blood flow in space.
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