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What Happened? NASA Probes Rocket Explosion

CBN

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Investigators are looking for answers to what caused Tuesday night's mid-air explosion of a supply rocket headed to the International Space Station.

Hundreds gathered to watch the nighttime launch, which was supposed to be visible to millions along the East Coast. Instead, they saw the unmanned Antares rocket turn into a fireball only seconds after liftoff.

The Orbital Sciences Corporation rocket was carrying about 5,000 pounds of cargo for the Space Station.

An executive at the private firm said things began to go wrong almost from the start and ground control likely sent a destruct signal to the rocket.

"It began to go wrong around 10 to 12 seconds," Orbital Executive Vice President Frank Culbertson said. "I do know that range-safety initiated the flight termination system around 20 seconds, maybe a little bit before."

He said repairing the launch pad at the Wallops Island, Virginia, complex is the top priority.

"We will understand what happened, hopefully soon, and we'll get things back on track," Fox News quoted Culbertson. "We've all seen this happen in our business before, and we've seen the teams recover from this and we'll do the same."

NASA confirmed that all personnel had been accounted for and no was in the area was injured.

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