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A supply rocket carrying cargo and experiments to the ISS exploded shortly after liftoff. NASA and Orbital Sciences (the company operating the rocket) have not released any information about what may have caused the incident, pending further investigation.
The mission was unmanned, and all personnel are safe and accounted for. The extent of the damage to the launch facility has not yet been determined.
Phil Plait, author of the Bad Astronomy blog speculates that the 60s-70s era refurbished Russian engines the vehicle used will come under heavy scrutiny.
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ISS Resupply Rocket Explodes Shortly after Launch
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ANN JILLIAN'S HAIR makes LONI ANDERSON'S HAIR look like RICARDO
MONTALBAN'S HAIR!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by WillAdams on Wednesday October 29 2014, @12:41PM
Actually, we've been studying all the old stuff and reaching a much better understanding: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/ [arstechnica.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday October 29 2014, @03:41PM
The technique with closed cycle rocket engine is very efficient but comes with some some hard engineering issues. America in the 1960s seemed to have conclude that this was "impossible" solve. But obviously the Russian engineers succeeded to make it work. So this rocket failure could be a problem with the implementation of this technique rather than the technique itself. So good luck next time.
The story behind the rocket engine NK-33 [wikipedia.org] and the staged combustion [wikipedia.org] technique is fascinating.
How is production of closed cycle rocket engines these days?