Reporters run for cover as Antares rocket explodes

A commercial Cygnus resupply ship named for Robert H. Lawrence, Jr. — the first African American selected as an astronaut — is awaiting liftoff Sunday evening from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore to begin a 35-hour trip to the International Space Station.

An Orbital ATK investigation into last year’s Antares rocket crash in Virginia identified a decades-old manufacturing defect inside an AJ26 engine turbopump as the most likely cause of the failure, but a team of NASA engineers was not so sure in their report.

Air Force meteorologists on this Good Friday have released their initial forecast for Tuesday’s launch of a cargo ship to the International Space Station, predicting favorable conditions to fly the Atlas 5 booster on a commercial mission.