Rocket Fails, Is Destroyed After Liftoff

An unmanned rocket that may have been hit by lightning careened out of control Thursday and was destroyed by radio signal 51 seconds after it lifted off with an $83-million military communications satellite, officials said.

A NASA videotape showed a lightning bolt descending from the vicinity of the Atlas-Centaur rocket, hidden in clouds, and striking the launch pad about the time the vehicle exploded.

Launch officials, however, said they did not want to speculate on what went wrong until they have analyzed the data.

Flaming debris from the shattered rocket and payload plunged into the Atlantic Ocean about three miles offshore.

Launched in Rainstorm

The 137-foot rocket lifted off in a rainstorm and darted into a cloud bank. As it disappeared, observers saw what they thought was a lightning flash near the vehicle.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration launch commentator George Diller said the rocket appeared to be flying normally, but then he announced: “We have lost all telemetry data. . . . We appear to have lost the vehicle.”

Later, he reported that the rocket had shot out of control and was blown apart, at an altitude of 14,250 feet, by a radio signal that detonated explosive charges in the vehicle so it would not crash in a populated area.

“Certainly, there was a possibility there was a lightning strike in the area,” launch Director James L. Womack said. “We’ve asked the range to check all their intensity meters to determine if there was one.”

Go-Ahead Given

John W. Gibb, manager of NASA’s Atlas-Centaur project office, said range weather officials had assured the launch team there was no lightning within five miles of the launch pad or the rocket’s flight path just before the go-ahead was given to launch.

Launch rules prohibit a liftoff if there is electrical activity within five miles.

Lightning was reported, Gibb said, on the edge of the five-mile zone about 15 minutes before launch, and the countdown was held up for 14 minutes until that storm activity moved on.

“At the time of the launch, we were in a solid go as far as the weather was concerned,” Gibb said. Rain would not have prevented a launch, he added.

The launch failure Thursday ended a streak of seven U.S. space launch successes. That string followed three failures early last year, including the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger that killed the crew of seven.

The failure ruined a $161-million mission. The Atlas-Centaur cost $78 million and the satellite $83 million.