WALLOPS Va./CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. Authorities on Wednesday started investigating what caused an unmanned U.S. supply rocket to explode in a fireball moments after liftoff from a Virginia launch pad, destroying supplies and equipment bound for the International Space Station. 
 
 The 14-story Antares rocket, built and launched by Orbital Sciences Corp, blasted off from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island at 6:22 p.m. on Tuesday but burst into flames moments later. It was the first disaster since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration turned to private operators to run cargo to the space station. 
 
 While no one was hurt, witnesses said the explosion looked like a "ball of fire" and shook buildings for miles. 
 
 "The explosion was a big boom - we could also feel it here, just the ground shaking," said Shirley Lapole, assistant education coordinator at the NASA Visitors Center, who was watching the launch from about seven miles away. 
 
 The rocket carried a Cygnus cargo ship with more than 5,000 pounds (2,273 kg) of equipment and supplies for the station, a $100 billion research laboratory owned and operated by 15 nations that orbits about 260 miles (418 km) above Earth. 
 
 The area around the launch facility was cordoned off on Wednesday and a helicopter circled overhead. The Cygnus mission was non-military but the craft included classified cryptographic equipment, said Mike Pinkston, Orbital's Antares program manager, requiring heightened security. 
 
 Pieces of cloth-like debris were found scattered across Chincoteague Island, just northeast of Wallops Island and about 100 miles north of Norfolk on Virginia's Eastern Shore. 
 
 "GREAT LOSS" 
 
 Investigators will need days to determine where the failure began, said Frank Culbertson, an Orbital executive vice president and mission director, who placed the value of the rocket and cargo ship at $200 million. The exact cause may take longer to ascertain and correcting the problem could take months, he said. Meanwhile, Orbital has grounded the Antares, which previously made four flights, all successful. 
 
 Still, the loss of the supply vessel posed no immediate problem for the orbiting station's six-member crew: two from NASA, one from the European Space Agency and three Russians, officials said. 
 
 "It’s a great loss when you lose a vehicle like that ... but we press on," NASA space station flight engineer Barry Wilmore said during an in-flight interview on Wednesday. "We’ve got supplies to last us four to six months." 
 
 The Antares rocket launched Tuesday included an enhanced second-stage engine, which allowed an additional 800 pounds of cargo to be loaded aboard Cygnus. It is not known if the rocket's extra weight and length were factors in the accident. 
 
 Shares of Orbital, which agreed to buy Alliant Techsystems Inc's aerospace and defense business in April, tumbled as low as $25.02 and closed down 16.8 percent at $25.27. 
 
 Alliant, also known as ATK, said it was conducting a "thorough evaluation" of the deal, touted by the companies at the time as a $5 billion merger of equals. ATK shares closed down 6.5 percent at $121.34. 
 
 Still, sources familiar with the situation said the deal was unlikely to unravel. 
 
 "There is no specific provision in the merger agreement for a launch failure," Orbital CEO David Thompson told analysts after ATK's statement. "As far as I know, I think things will continue." 
 
 ORBITAL'S NEXT LAUNCH SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 
 
 In other collateral damage, the explosion destroyed a small satellite built by closely held Planetary Resources Inc with backing from Google Inc CEO Larry Page, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and other well-known investors. The company intends to mine asteroids for fuel, water and minerals. 
 
 Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences is one of two companies NASA has hired to fly cargo to the station after NASA's space shuttles were retired in 2011. Tuesday's flight was to be the third of eight under the company's $1.9 billion contract. Its next launch had been slated for April 2015, according to internal NASA schedules. 
 
 The second U.S. supply line to the station is run by privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which is preparing its fourth flight under a separate $1.6 billion NASA contract, slated for Dec. 9. 
 
 The accident is unlikely to affect the existing contracts but could influence the awarding of follow-up contracts that NASA is soliciting. 
 
 Russia's Roskosmos space agency said it was ready to help ferry extra U.S. cargo to the space station if NASA requested. The station is overseen by Russia and the United States, whose relations are at a low ebb over the Ukraine crisis. 
 
 In a long-scheduled mission, an unmanned Russian Progress supply vehicle was launched from Kazakhstan hours after the explosion and the capsule, carrying more than 5,000 pounds of food, fuel and supplies, reached the station Wednesday morning. 
 
 RUSSIAN ROCKET ENGINES 
 
 The Antares is powered by a pair of Soviet-era NK-33 engines refurbished by GenCorp Inc's Aerojet Rocketdyne division and resold as AJ-26 motors. 
 
 In May, an AJ-26 exploded during a ground test in Mississippi. GenCorp shares on Wednesday dropped 5.4 percent to $16.26. 
 
 Glenn Mahone, an Aerojet spokesman, said it was working closely with investigators but declined to comment further. 
 
 With the GenCorp engine involved in two accidents, concerns over the availability of Russian engines for use in U.S. rockets have intensified. Russia has threatened to suspend exports in response to U.S. trade sanctions prompted by Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region. 
 
 The accident should have no impact on ferrying crew to and from the station, all of whom fly aboard Russian Soyuz capsules. 
 
 It was unclear how much Tuesday's explosion would cost Orbital. The rocket was insured for around $40 million to $50 million of losses, insurance sources said. One source pinned the loss at $48 million. 
 
 Willis Group Holdings Plc, the broker for the insurance risk, declined to comment. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore and Mike Stone in New York; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by James Dalgleish) ||||| CLOSE USA TODAY's Shannon Rae Green interviews USA TODAY editor Mike James about the Antares rocket that exploded after launch Tuesday night. (USA NOW, USA TODAY) 
 
 An unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket explodes shortly after takeoff at Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., on Oct. 28, 2014. (Photo: Jay Diem, AP) 
 
 An unmanned commercial rocket headed for the International Space Station to deliver supplies exploded just after launching Tuesday, filling the sky with a massive fireball. 
 
 The Antares rocket supplied by contractor Orbital Sciences blew up moments after liftoff at NASA's space launch facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the space agency said. 
 
 The explosion destroyed the rocket and spacecraft and immediately raised questions about the future of NASA's reliance on private commercial ventures to carry vital payloads into space to supply and support the orbiting space station. 
 
 NASA and Orbital Sciences were gathering data to determine the cause of the failure of the Orbital CRS-3, the space agency said. No injuries were reported. 
 
 "There has been a vehicle anomaly," Orbital Sciences, the contractor supplying the rocket, said on its Twitter feed. It added later in a statement, "The vehicle suffered a catastrophic failure." 
 
 "It is far too early to know the details of what happened," said Frank Culbertson, Orbital's executive vice president and general manager of its Advanced Programs Group. 
 
 "We will not fly until we understand the root cause," he said. 
 
 
 
 Culbertson said he believes the range-safety staff sent a destruct signal to the rocket after it encountered problems and before it hit the ground, but was not certain. Bill Wrobel, director of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, said crews were letting the fire burn out. 
 
 Shares of Orbital Sciences fell nearly 15% to $25.85 in the hours following the explosion. 
 
 Doppler radar shows the explosion of the #Antares rocket. No injuries reported according to @NASApic.twitter.com/ugY57LZgve — Matt Daniel (@mattdanielwx) October 28, 2014 
 
 The rocket had been scheduled for takeoff on Monday night, but the launch was postponed when a boat entered a hazard area down range.The launch was to have begun a fourth space station delivery for the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences. 
 
 CLOSE The rocket explosion at NASA's Wallops facility in Virginia was captured from 3,000 feet by Ed Sealing at Sealing Technologies Inc. VPC 
 
 Ed Sealing Jr., a pilot from Odenton, Md., was flying his small Cessna airplane with his father hoping to get a glimpse of the launch. He shot video with an iPad that shows what Sealing called two explosions, a small one followed by a bigger one. 
 
 "I'll be honest, I've never seen a rocket launched before,'' Sealing said. "And I still haven't.... It was definitely dramatic.'' 
 
 Sealing said they were watching from 3,000 feet altitude and a couple miles outside the restricted air space around the launch facility. 
 
 "I just kind of thought, that's not right, something's wrong there,'' he said. "Then there was a second big explosion.'' 
 
 The Antares rocket was scheduled to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET. The rocket was intended to propel the Cygnus vehicle, packed with 5,000 pounds of cargo, to rendezvous with the space station. 
 
 The company says no one was believed to be hurt and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities. All people at the launch site are accounted for, NASA said. 
 
 Flames could be seen shooting into the sky as the sun set in video of the launch. 
 
 Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said in a statement that "spaceflight is inherently risky. As we push the frontiers of space there will be setbacks. But our commercial space ventures will ultimately be successful." 
 
 The Cygnus cargo ship was loaded with gear for the six people living on the space station. It was the fourth Cygnus bound for the orbiting lab; the first flew just over a year ago. 
 
 Among the cargo were more than a dozen student research projects, including an experiment from students at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Houston to test the performance of pea shoot growth in space. 
 
 NASA is paying the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences and the California-based SpaceX company to keep the space station stocked in the post-shuttle era. This is the first disaster in that effort. 
 
 Orbital Sciences is contracted to conduct eight supply missions delivering 20 tons of material to the space station. 
 
 NASA said engineers from Orbital Sciences were not "tracking any issues" before the launch. 
 
 NASA said it is investigating the crash and collecting all telemetry and other data, along with the contractor. 
 
 The National Transportation Safety Board is monitoring, NASA said. 
 
 CLOSE USA TODAY's Doyle Rice talks about the explosion of the Antares rocket. (USA NEWS, USA TODAY) 
 
 Contributing: Donna Leinwand Leger; The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times; The Associated Press 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1wAj1sx
– A rocket that was supposed to deliver supplies to the crew aboard the International Space Station exploded in spectacular fashion just six seconds after liftoff this evening, reports CNN. The good news is that nobody was aboard, and NASA says nobody appears to have been killed on the ground at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. ("No indicated loss of life," in NASA-speak.) The rocket's cargo ship held about 5,000 pounds of supplies and science equipment for the six people now on the space station, reports AP. The Anteres rocket was launched by Orbital Sciences Corp., one of the two companies (along with SpaceX) hired by NASA to make supply runs to the space station. No word yet on what went wrong. NASA reported "100% favorable weather" and "no technical concerns" just prior to liftoff.