An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket descended into hellish inferno after the first stage propulsion system exploded moments after liftoff from the NASA’s Wallops Flight
Facility along the Atlantic seaboard in Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer
utter catastrophe.
ground fire was spreading, mostly to the northern portion
of the pad and the expanding air borne plume also blew
Suddenly I felt a pressure wave followed by a noticenorthwards. The ground fire was still burning over a half
able heat wave passing by. At first I wasn’t sure it was
hour later we could see later on videos.
real or my imagination.
Thankfully, everyone got out safe and there were no
But talking to others, and looking later at my video I
injuries due to the excellent effort by our NASA escorts
knew it was for real. The shaking video from my tripod
trained for exactly
mounted camera drathese types of unexmatically proved that.
A series of irregular, ear-piercing mid-air pected circumstances.
Then the rocket
began to fall back to
It’s absolutely heartexplosions suddenly rocked the area.
Earth. Then the ground
breaking for everyone’s
And it went on and on. And now there painstaking efforts to
blew up as the rocket
pieces hit the ground
get to the point of liftoff
was absolutely no doubt this was
and exploded into a
after years of effort to
hail of smithereens in
fulfill the critical need
an utter catastrophe.
every direction.
to resupply that station
with the science equipI wasn’t scared – but
ment and experiments for which it was built. I met many
definitely stunned beyond description. I wondered for a
excellent folks from Orbital and NASA over the years who
moment if some dangerous debris was hurtling towards
worked so hard and put all their hopes and dreams into
us. But I realized by then it was too late anyway.
this launch. It’s a total tragedy.
By this time within moments our NASA escorts starting yelling to abandon everything in place and head
immediately for the buses and evacuate the area. A
64
64
Looking at my press site and remote photographs afterwards and seeing Antares descending frame by frame
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