ATLANTIC, Va. (AP) — The owners of a commercial supply ship that exploded moments after liftoff promised to find the cause of the failed delivery mission to the International Space Station and warned residents to not touch any debris they might stumble across from the craft, which was carrying hazardous materials. 
 
 Dave Uhrich, an Ocean City High School physics teacher, center, holds a computer tablet on the Ocean City Boardwalk in Ocean City, N.J. to show people the launch and explosion of a rocket launched from... (Associated Press) 
 
 This image taken from video provided by NASA TV shows Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned rocket blowing up over the launch complex at Wallops Island, Va., just six seconds after liftoff. The company says... (Associated Press) 
 
 Dave Uhrich, an Ocean City High School physics teacher, center, holds a computer tablet as a gathering of people who were on the Ocean City Boardwalk, in Ocean City, NJ, to view a rocket launched from... (Associated Press) 
 
 An unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket headed for the International Space Station lifts off from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014 shortly before... (Associated Press) 
 
 An unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket explodes shortly after takeoff at Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. No injuries were reported following the... (Associated Press) 
 
 An unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket headed for the International Space Station explodes shortly after liftoff from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. on Tuesday, Oct. 28,... (Associated Press) 
 
 An unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket headed for the International Space Station lifts off from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014 shortly before... (Associated Press) 
 
 Spectators in Chincoteague, Va. watch the fireball from the explosion of the unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. on... (Associated Press) 
 
 This image taken from video provided by NASA TV shows Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned rocket blowing up over the launch complex at Wallops Island, Va., just six seconds after liftoff. The company says... (Associated Press) 
 
 Crews planned to hit the ground at daybreak Wednesday to search for pieces of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo module, which blew up Tuesday night just moments after lifting off from NASA's launch complex at Wallops Island, Virginia, said Bill Wrobel, director of the facility. 
 
 The cargo ship was carrying 5,000 pounds of experiments and equipment for NASA, as well as prepackaged meals and freeze-dried Maryland crabcakes for a Baltimore-born astronaut who's been in orbit for five months. All of the lost materials will be replaced and flown to the 260-mile-high space station, NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini said. He said astronauts at the station currently have enough supplies to last until spring. 
 
 The accident could draw scrutiny to the space agency's growing reliance on private U.S. companies in the post-shuttle era. NASA is paying billions of dollars to Virginia-based Orbital Sciences and the California-based SpaceX company to make station deliveries, and it's counting on SpaceX and Boeing to start flying U.S. astronauts to the orbiting lab as early as 2017. It was the fourth Cygnus bound for the orbiting lab; the first flew just over a year ago. SpaceX is scheduled to launch another Dragon supply ship from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in December. 
 
 Until Tuesday, all of the supply missions by Orbital Sciences and SpaceX had been near-flawless. 
 
 President Barack Obama has long championed this commercial space effort. He was in Wisconsin for a campaign rally and was kept informed. 
 
 Orbital Sciences' executive vice president Frank Culbertson said the company carried insurance on the mission, which he valued at more than $200 million, not counting repair costs. The explosion hit Orbital Science's stock, which fell more than 15 percent in after-hours trading. 
 
 By coincidence, the Russian Space Agency was proceeding with its own supply run Wednesday, planned well before the U.S. mishap. 
 
 John Logdson, former space policy director at George Washington University, said the explosion was unlikely to be a major setback to NASA's commercial space plans. But he noted it could derail Orbital Sciences for a while given the company has just one launch pad and the accident occurred right above it. 
 
 At a news conference Tuesday night, Culbertson and others said everyone at the launch site had been accounted for and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities. 
 
 He noted that the cargo module was carrying hazardous materials and warned residents to avoid any contact with debris. 
 
 "Certainly don't go souvenir hunting along the beach," he said. 
 
 Things began to go wrong 10 to 12 seconds into the flight and it was all over in 20 seconds when what was left of the rocket came crashing down, Culbertson said. He said he believes the range-safety staff sent a destruct signal before it hit the ground, but was not certain at this point. 
 
 This was the second launch attempt for the mission. Monday evening's try was thwarted by a stray sailboat in the rocket's danger zone. The restrictions are in case of just such an accident that occurred Tuesday. 
 
 Culbertson said the top priority will be repairing the launch pad "as quickly and safely as possible." 
 
 "We will not fly until we understand the root cause," he said, adding that it was too early to guess how long it might take to make the rocket repairs and fix the launch pad. It will take a few weeks, alone, to assess the damage and extent of potential repairs. 
 
 Culbertson also stressed that it was too soon to know whether the Russian-built engines, modified for the Antares and extensively tested, were to blame. 
 
 "We will understand what happened — hopefully soon — and we'll get things back on track," Culbertson assured his devastated team. "We've all seen this happen in our business before, and we've all seen the teams recover from this, and we will do the same." 
 
 The Wallops facility is small compared to NASA's major centers like those in Florida, Texas and California, but vaulted into the public spotlight in September 2013 with a NASA moonshot and the first Cygnus launch to the space station. 
 
 Michelle Murphy, an innkeeper at the Garden and Sea Inn, New Church, Virginia, where launches are visible across a bay about 16 miles away, saw the explosion. 
 
 "It was scary. Everything rattled," she said. "There were two explosions. The first one we were ready for. The second one we weren't. It shook the inn, like an earthquake. It was extremely intense." 
 
 Among the instruments that were lost from the cargo module: a meteor tracker and 32 mini research satellites, along with numerous experiments compiled by schoolchildren. 
 
 The two Americans, three Russians and one German on the orbiting space station were watching a live video feed from Mission Control and saw the whole thing unfold, Suffredini said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Dunn reported from Cape Canaveral, Florida. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington and Associated Press Writer Alex Sanz in Atlanta contributed to this report. 
 
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 Online: 
 
 NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html 
 
 Orbital Sciences: https://www.orbital.com/ ||||| 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 ||||| 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)
– The cause of yesterday's rocket explosion over Wallops Island, Va., remains under investigation: While a tweet from Orbital Sciences refers to a "vehicle anomaly," other reports have focused on aging rocket engines. They were built in the 1960s and 1970s to send Soviet cosmonauts to the moon, the Guardian reports. Why use them? "There are not many other options around the world in terms of using power plants of this size, certainly not in this country," says Frank Culbertson, an exec with Orbital Sciences. Concerns about the engines have previously been raised, both by Congress and rival SpaceX. "Their rocket honestly sounds like the punchline to a joke," boss Elon Musk said in 2012. A similar engine exploded during a test in May, Reuters reports, but the rocket has taken off four times before without accident. Other developments: Culbertson says things appeared to be going wrong with the 14-story rocket within about 10 seconds of liftoff—it's just not clear what. "We will understand what happened—hopefully soon—and we'll get things back on track." Though no lives were lost in the explosion, hundreds of millions of dollars in cargo was, the Guardian notes, pointing to "classified cryptographic" equipment. Nothing "absolutely critical" is gone, says a NASA official. But a meteor tracker, 32 mini-satellites, and a school experiment testing the growth of pea shoots in space were also lost, USA Today adds. Orbital Sciences was insured to the tune of more than $200 million, Culbertson tells the AP. The company's stock took an after-hours hit of 15%. And in a tragic turn of events for one Marylander aboard the ISS: The crabcakes he was supposed to get are presumably burned beyond recognition.