CRI听力:U.S Supply Rocket Uses Decades-Old Engines

A full-scale investigation is underway to try to determine what caused a privately-owned rocket to explode shortly after takeoff yesterday.

The unmanned Antares rocket blew up just seconds after lift-off from a NASA launch center in the US state of Virginia.

The rocket was supposed to carry some 5-thousand tons of supplies to the International Space Station.

A number of observers are pointing to the age of the rocket itself as one possible reason for its failure, as its engines were refurbished Soviet-made devices created some 40-years ago.

Space analyst Marco Caceres.

"When you take an old engine like that and you refurbish it, you modernize it. It becomes in practical sense, a new engine. But when you have a catastrophic explosion like this, it's very easy to go and be a Monday morning quarterback and say, well how could we possibly have been so silly to think that an engine this old would be good in this day and age, wouldn't there be some good alternatives? And those are all questions that are going to be - and they are legitimate questions - that are going to be asked in the next few weeks and months."

No one was injured in the fiery explosion, though the massive blast did do damage to a number of facilities on the ground.

Meanwhile, a Russian supply ship has since docked with the International Space Station with a load of fresh supplies.