Reporters run for cover as Antares rocket explodes

These narrated videos show the pre-launch preparations that readied the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and the Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo-delivery spacecraft for flight and rolling to Complex 41 for liftoff to the International Space Station.

No one had ever lost 26 satellites at once until a launch failure bit Planet Labs last year, temporarily setting back the San Francisco startup’s ambition to map the globe every day.

A two-stage Northrop Grumman Antares booster lifted off Nov. 2 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Eastern Shore with a Cygnus cargo freighter on the way to the International Space Station.