The Unmanned Antares Rocket Just Exploded Immediately After Lift-Off

Mere seconds after NASA's live-streamed Antares rocket launch, the craft exploded and crashed back down to earth. There were no crew onboard, and it's been confirmed that all personnel have been accounted for and no one was harmed.

It was to be the craft's third resupply mission to the International Space Station, and the control team is currently following contingency procedures to assess what went wrong on the ground at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.

In addition to over 5,000 pounds of materials for the ISS—full cargo manifesto below—Antares was also carrying the first payload from Planetary Resources. The fledgling asteroid mining company (formerly Arkyd Astronautics) raised $1.5million last year on Kickstarter to construct and dispatch the first publicly controlled orbiting space telescope. According to Popular Mechanics, the rocket was carrying 32 CubeSats—or mini research satellites—one of which was the Arkyd 3 (A3) from Planetary Resources, which was to act as a kind of prototype for future developments.

YouTube user Brad Panovich captured the malfunction (please be aware, even though no one was hurt it's upsetting to see).

And another angle:

Twitter is responding with some pretty major pics:

NASA rocket explodes on launch: http://t.co/tnRjqQ7G0u pic.twitter.com/kqP9TeDeij

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) October 28, 2014

#Antares exploded shortly after leaving launch pad from @NASA_Wallops on Wallops Island, Va. #NASA #Rocketexplosion pic.twitter.com/WJj7M2JPrj

— Eduardo A. Encina (@EddieInTheYard) October 28, 2014

Photo of #Antares rocket exploding just after launch from @NASA_Wallops on Wallops Island, VA. Rocket unmanned. #nasa pic.twitter.com/3jMSYgp6mc

— Eduardo A. Encina (@EddieInTheYard) October 28, 2014

Here is the full cargo manifest from NASA (via SpaceFlightInsider):

Science investigations: 1,602.8 lbs.

-U.S. science: 1,254.4 lbs

-International partner science: 348.3 lbs

Crew supplies: 1,649 lbs

-Equipment: 273.4 lbs

-Food: 1,360.3 lbs

-Flight prcedure books: 15.4 lbs

Vehicle hardware: 1,404.3 lbs

-U.S. hardware: 1,338.2 lbs

-JAXA hardware: 66.1 lbs

Spacewalk equipment: 145.5 lbs

Computer resources: 81.6 lbs

-Command and data handling equipment: 75 lbs

-Photopgraphy/TV equipment: 6.6 lbs

Updating...

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