Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based start-up that wants to provide daily images of every spot on earth, lost 26 micro satellites when an Orbital Sciences rocket exploded shortly after lift-off Tuesday.

The Antares rocket burst into flames seconds after rising into the sky from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, falling back to the launch pad and then spectacularly exploding in a huge fireball.

The rocket was carrying a Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station. Among the Cygnus cargo were 26 satellites, the fourth group of satellites to be launched by the company. They would have worked in unison with the three sets of satellites launched previously, to provide more regularly updated photographs of the planet.

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