An unmanned SpaceX rocket carrying supplies and the first-of-its-kind docking port to the International Space Station has broken apart shortly after lift-off.
It was a severe blow to the US space agency Nasa, still reeling from previous failed shipments.
The accident occurred about two and a half minutes into the flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Debris could be seen falling into the Atlantic. More than 5,200lbs (2,360 kilos) of space station cargo were on board, including the first docking port designed for future commercial crew capsules.
"The vehicle has broken up," announced Nasa commentator George Diller. He said it was not clear how the disaster occurred or even when the rocket actually failed. Data stopped flowing from the Falcon 9 rocket around two minutes and 19 seconds into the flight. No astronauts were on board.
The rocket appeared to break apart while travelling at 2,900 mph (4,670 kph), about 27 miles (43 kms) up.
California-based SpaceX, a private company, was trying to work out what happened, noting that everything appeared to go well in flight until the rocket went supersonic.
Losing this shipment - which included replacements for items lost in two previous failed supply flights - was a huge setback for Nasa in more than one way. The agency is counting on private industry to transport cargo - and eventually astronauts - to the orbiting lab. SpaceX is one of the contenders.
The seven previous SpaceX supply runs, dating back to 2012, had gone exceedingly well.
This is the second failed station shipment in a row and the third in eight months.
In April, a Russian cargo ship spun out of control and burned up upon re-entry, with all its precious contents. And last October, another company's supply ship was destroyed in a launch accident.
This Dragon had been carrying replacement food, clothes and science experiments for items lost in those two mishaps.
The three space station residents were watching the launch live from orbit.
"Sadly failed," space station astronaut Scott Kelly said via Twitter. "Space is hard."
The space station crew is in no immediate trouble because of this latest loss. Late last week, Nasa's space station programme manager, Mike Suffredini, said the outpost had enough supplies on board to make it to October or so.
Russia expects to take another crack at launching supplies on Friday from Kazakhstan.
SpaceX - led by billionaire Elon Musk, who also heads up the electric car maker Tesla - is one of two companies hired by Nasa to start ferrying American astronauts to the space station as early as 2017. The other contender is Boeing.
Musk noted via Twitter that the rocket "experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown." The company had hoped to land the first-stage booster on an ocean platform, off the north Florida coast, in a test of rocket reusability. Previous efforts had failed.
Launch spectators lining the beaches near Cape Canaveral were confused, at first, by the unexpected plumes in the sky.
"It looked fine until it was almost out of sight. And then, a poof of smoke," said Whitney Jackson watching with her family. "Everyone was cheering and clapping. No one knew it meant failure."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article