About six seconds after liftoff at 6:22 p.m. Eastern, the Antares rocket exploded in mid-air. Fortunately, no people were aboard and no one was injured.
The rocket is designed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, under a contract with NASA. It's a two-stage launch vehicle that can shepherd up to 6,120kg or about 13,500 pounds, to the International Space Station. The first launch took places from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in April 21, 2013.
No personnel were in the area, and there appear only to be damages to today's launch site at Wallops and vehicles, according to the NASA livestream. The Antares rocket would have launched a Cygnus spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station; this would have been Orbital's...
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