Several experts outside of NASA are training their eyes on the Russian engines that powered the 140-foot Antares rocket a contractor was using to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. 

The rocket exploded Tuesday night seconds after lift-off, raining flaming debris around the launch site and sending ash across residential neighborhoods nearby. 

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The blast incinerated two-and-a-half tons of cargo including food, clothing, equipment and science investigations, initiated by school children, that need to be experimented in space. 

NASA and contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. crews were scoring the Virginia coast for debris from the rocket that could help investigators determine the cause of the explosion. The destruction on the unmanned rocket and its cargo dealt a serious blow to the commercial spaceflight program that both NASA and the White House championed. 

No one was injured and damage to the Wallops, Virginia launch pad was reportedly negligible. It was the first failure after a string of eight successful cargo flights to the space station since 2012. Three of those flights were made by Orbital Sciences, and five by SpaceX, NASA's other supply contractor for the ISS. 

Experts now suspect that there might have been a problem with the 1960s-era engines built in Russia and used in the first stage of the Antares rocket. David Thompson, Orbital Sciences chairman, had himself said the Russian-made engines had presented some "serious technical and supply challenges in the past." 

Thompson also acknowledged that even before Tuesday's failed launch, the company had been reviewing alternatives to the Russian-made engines. In fact, Orbital Sciences had selected a different main propulsion system for use in a couple of years. If the Russian engines prove to be the culprit, the switch may be accelerated, said Thompson. 

The Antares rocket had AJ26 engines that were modified and tested in the U.S., but were originally designed to power massive Russian rockets meant to take cosmonauts to the moon during the late 1960s space race. 

NASA records show that an AJ26 engine leaked kerosene fuel and ignited on the test stand at NASA's center in Mississippi three years ago. In May this year, another one of the engines exploded during test firing in the same facility. 

SpaceX makes its own rocket parts. In 2012, interviewed by Wired magazine, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Mush called the Antares rocket "a punchline to a joke" owing to the Russian-made engines. 

"I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the '60s and, like, packed away in Siberia or somewhere," Musk had said. 

Chairman Thompson of Orbital Sciences said he expects a three-month delay in the company's next cargo flight, which had been set for April in 2015. 

We are certainly disappointed by this failure, but in no way are we discouraged or dissuaded from our objectives," Thompson reported to investors in a phone conference.

TagsNASA, orbital sciences, antares rocket, space station