The NASA rocket explosion Tuesday evening happened seconds after the unmanned NASA rocket launched from a commercial launch pad in the US state of Virginia. The NASA rocket explosion occurred six seconds after lift-off, causing a huge fireball falling down to the Earth, fortunately with no apparent deaths.
NASA tweeted the six-second failure after the launch, reports Fox CT.
The Antares rocket is supplied by contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. According to NASA, the rocket which carried the Cygnus cargo spacecraft was set to launch 6:22 p.m. ET from the Wallops Flight Facility along the Atlantic Ocean.
The Tuesday launch's mission was to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, the NASA rocket exploded on launch and crashed back to Earth, as shown via NASA TV broadcast.
The rocket explosion video shows the Antares, measuring 14-storeys high, rising into the air for just a few seconds before plummeting back to Earth and causing more flames on the ground. It was reportedly bolted off its seaside launch pad at the Wallops Flight Facility.
NASA said there were no injuries. However, much was lost from the NASA rocket explosion, according to USA Today.
"There was failure on launch," said NASA spokesman Jay Bolden. "There was no indicated loss of life. There was significant property and vehicle damage. Mission control is trying to assess what went wrong."
The cause of the NASA rocket accident was not immediately known, said Dan Huot, NASA's mission commentator.
"This has been a lot of hard work to get to this point," Frank Culbertson, Orbital Sciences' Executive Vice President, told the Antares launch team just before liftoff.
"You immediately thought that everything was fine, because you see the big launch, and it brightened up the sky," Said Ed Encina, a Baltimore Sun reporter who watched the NASA rocket explode three miles away in the remote resort area. "And then all of a sudden, you see a big fireball."
Encina told the even recalling a loud boom that caused "your feet (to) shake a little bit." Flames also surrounded a roughly 100-yard area near the launch pad in a marshy area.
Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly said a huge fire was to be expected from a blast like the NASA rocket explosion's.
"It takes a lot of propellant to take a spacecraft of that size moving 25 times the speed of sound," Kelly told CNN. "So when it fails, it's usually pretty catastrophic."
The launch was initially set Monday. However it was put off for Tuesday "because of a boat down range in the trajectory Antares would have flown had it lifted off," said NASA.
By Tuesday, day of lift off, NASA reported "100% favourable" weather and "no technical concerns with the rocket or spacecraft being worked."
After the Tuesday explosion , NASA's feed showed the launch director saying all personnel were accounted for and that there were no injuries.
He added the spacecraft contained "classified ... equipment," and that the area needs to be cleared of debris for investigative and potential security reasons.
Antares carried a Cygnus spacecraft which was filled with 5,055 pounds (2,293 kg) of supplies, science experiments and equipment, which was a 15 percent increase in cargo over previous missions.
One-third of the spacecraft's cargo reportedly contained material for scientific investigations and supplies for the ISS crew, which included more than 1,300 pounds of food.
Cygnus was supposedly on a mission to loiter in orbit until Nov. 2, then go back to the station so that astronauts can use a robotic crane to snare the capsule and attach it to a berthing port, reports Al Jazeera. The rocket that exploded was supposed to send the Cygnus to the six people on the space station.
Tuesday's launch was supposed to be the fourth flight for Orbital until it ended in "catastrophic failure," as the company said.
"We will conduct a thorough investigation immediately to determine the cause of this failure and what steps can be taken to avoid a repeat of this incident," said general manager of Orbital's Advanced Programs Group, Frank Culbertson. "As soon as we understand the cause, we will begin the necessary work to return to flight to support our customers and the nation's space program."
Because of the NASA rocket explosion, the agency will be paying Virginia-based Orbital Sciences and California-based SpaceX to keep the space station stocked during the post-shuttle era. The recent rocket explosion by the NASA's Antares rocket is reportedly the first disaster in that effort.
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