News that a rocket exploded upon takeoff filled the airwaves as cable news broadcast endless loops of the spectacular footage.
The Antares rocket was being launched yesterday by the Orbital Sciences Corporation at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Much of the coverage has focused on its payload that was supposed to be delivered to the International Space Station.
But the rocket was also carrying 26 Flock 1d satellites built by San Francisco-based Planet Labs. The company is creating a network of satellites (it calls them “Doves) to build a sophisticated Earth-imaging system.
