Orbital Sciences rocket blows up - Wallops Island
 

Nighttime rocket launch to International Space Station will be visible on US East Coast | Daily Mail Online

Orbital IIRC, had Pegasus air launched satellite rocket from B-52H and recently with Marshalls converted L-1011

Thankfully no one killed nor injured.....

Wallops flies ex USN P-3C and King Air 200

Cheers

Same engine as the N-1 Soviet Moon Booster, with a few US Modifications. Looks like it suffered the same issue that caused two of the N-1's to fail, i.e. Oxygen Turbopump failure / explosion. Trashed the launch pad like the second N-1 did as well.

Aye - and one suspects there may be a few nervous people at Chantilly, VA or Fort Meade tonight...

"Shortly after the incident, an unidentified official on the range controller's audio channel noted that the cargo contained "class-5 crypto" and so the launch site must be kept secure...."

:D:D:D
Should have waited to launch on the 5th November.....much better than your average fireworks display.:eek::eek::eek::eek:

Bet there will be a right mess to clean up and no one too keen to foot the bill either!

Still, I'm glad that there were no injuries/fatalities, could have been a lot worse. I wonder if it is possible to procure insurance against such a loss at launch. Many $$$$ up in smoke.

MB

I expect that Orbital Sciences Corp (whose rocket this was) hold public liability insurance, although the whole point of having launch sites with large exclusion areas and flight paths out over sea is that you minimise risk of damage to life or property if anything does go wrong.

As to the payload, it's for the US government, which tends to self-insure. A more interesting question will be what the fine print of OSC's contract for space station resupply says about whether it has to refund the cost of the launch.