The Orbital Sciences unmanned rocket, which was scheduled to launch at 6:28 p.m. Tuesday, October 28, 2014from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia has exploded on the launch pad shortly after its take-off.
According to NBC, NASA had comunicated with Orbital Sciences to deliver 5,000 of supplies to the International Space Station. The launch of the Antares rocket was scrubbed after a sailboat ended up in the restricted launch range, NBC reported.
Orbital Sciences released a statement on Tuesday, October 28, 2014, stating the rocket suffered a “catastrophic failure” just about immediately after lift-off. The statement assured that the rocket was unmanned, and no injuries have been reported as a result of the explosion as property damage was also limited to the south end of Wallops Island.
Orbital’s executive vice president and general manager, Frank Culbertson has said it is far too early to know the details of what happened as the cause of the incident was unclear but that they have formed anomaly investigation board to look closely into the matter and work with the government to know if it is influenced.
“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. 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,” Mr. Culbertson said.
@NASA investigates cause of explosion on unmanned #Antares rocket seconds after launchhttp://t.co/1dOc1AjBUu pic.twitter.com/vDWpK0VvRn
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) October 29, 2014
NASA posted on Twitter shortly after the incident and said that Orbital Sciences was in no way tracking issues prior to the explosion, and that updates shall be made available as soon as there is a development.
