According to the news the self destruct button was pushed.

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If it flies, I can crash it!

Self destruct button or not....LOX/kerosene boosters make the best explosions!

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I love sanding.

The booster motor(s) blew up shortly after departing the pad. The RSO initiated self destruct very close to when ground impact happened to assure it could still be commanded.

The proximity to the ground at all times indicates there is some possibility the payloads are partially salvagable given the self destruct systems are on the motors not the payload sections.

??

Planetary Resources had their first spacecraft on board.

The real tragedy here? There were Chesapeake crab cakes on board. There's at least one very disappointed astronaut on the ISS (I'd be really fizzed). The heck with all the other crap.

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Retro-grouch

Well I guess those crab cakes are well done now!

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If it flies, I can crash it!

International press is saying that too. Flight Global is relatively accurate on the issue though.

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YEAH! While it's never good to lose one (the students who built the nanosats that were lost will be given reflight opportunities, and I wouldn't be surprised if they built back-up satellites [or thermal test models of them that could be made flight-ready with little modification--even the 'one-off' Mariner 10 Mercury-Venus probe had such a "fix 'er upper" back-up available]), if a launch *has* to fail, it's at least exciting to have a spectacular fireworks finale. The really frustrating failures are the ones where the vehicle loses control or falls short of orbital (or escape) velocity out of sight, far away downrange.

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From Av-web:
Shortly after liftoff of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares Rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia on Tuesday, Oct. 28, it became apparent to the operators that there was a problem with the launch and they hit the destruct button. Barron Beneski, vice president of corporate communications at Orbital, confirmed that the flight termination system was engaged. According to observers in the space community, doing so prevented the rocket from putting people at risk as it was not going to achieve orbit. The first stage of the rocket was powered by two Aerojet AJ26-58 engines (liquid-fueled rockets have engines, solid-fueled rockets have motors), which are modified Soviet NK-33 engines originally built in the late 1960s or early 1970s and stockpiled for a Soviet moon rocket that was never made operational.

Criticism has been leveled at American commercial space operators for using Soviet-era engines; however, the Kuznetsov Design Bureau NK-33 has among the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any rocket engine in the world. The lack of American-built engines reflects an unwillingness of the U.S. government to invest in rocket engine development after the Apollo moon landings. Orbital Sciences modifies and updates the NK-33 into the Aerojet AJ26 by removing some electrical harnessing, adding U.S. electronics, modifying it for U.S. propellants and modifying the steering system. Orbital Sciences has already used the Aerojet AJ26-powered Antares to fly its Cygnus vehicle to the space station three times. The day after the Antares event, United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V to place a GPS satellite into orbit; it also used a Russian engine, the RD-180—a derivative of the Soviet era RD-170 engine.

I think it's funny that their press spinners are telling the public that they saw an anomaly and hit the self destruct which "saved everybody". It's obvious to all of us that the rocket would have fallen back to the launch pad and gone up in a ball of fire even if there was no self destruct mechanism. It looks to me (and some others here) that the person on the button was a little late and the rocket did the job all by itself without this "hero's" help.

I think the best line I've seen was that it became apparent to them that it wouldn't achieve orbit. Really? How long did it take those rocket scientists to figure that one out? It's about time somebody that's down to earth and honest did some press releases.

"Yep, we launched that sucker and it just hung there for a second and fell back down and blew itself to smithereens. We have no clue what happened, but that was a heckuva cool fireball, waddenit?"

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I love sanding.