Nasa to carry on with commercial rocket project despite explosion

Washington

THE US has vowed to continue its commercial space launch programme just hours after a rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station exploded over a Virginia launch pad.

The unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp rocket burst into an orange fireball on Tuesday above the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore. Orbital is leading an investigation into the cause of what Nasa described as a "catastrophic anomaly".