An Antares rocket explodes at Wallops Island moments after launch sending reporters and photographers at the press site running for cover. The video was captured by Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark.
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.