NASA’s unmanned supply rocket Antares explodes after liftoff

An unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded just six seconds after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site in Virginia. No injuries were reported following the first catastrophic launch in NASA’s commercial spaceflight effort. 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 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 spokesman Rob Navias said there was nothing on the lost flight that was urgently needed by the six people living on the space station.

We will understand what happened — hopefully soon — and we’ll get things back on track. 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.

Orbital Sciences’ executive vice president Frank Culbertson

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