When the Antares rocket exploded six seconds into launch on the Virginia coast Tuesday night, it didn’t just mean the loss of millions of dollars — it also meant that an Oakland middle school has lost its science project.

Students at Urban Promise Academy in California had created an experiment to see if red worms can turn garbage into compost while in space and had gotten it aboard the unmanned Cygnus spacecraft that was supposed to be launched to the International Space Station this week, but that and several thousand pounds of supplies and other experiments went up in smoke when the Antares rocket carrying the payload blew up shortly after takeoff, according to the San Jose Mercury-News.

Urban Promise Academy’s experiment was created by a three-person team and was chosen as a winning experiment that would be included in the spacecraft’s bundle of experiments. The rocket capsule had 5,000 pounds of experiments and equipment from NASA in all, 32 mini research satellites, food, a meteor tracker, and stuent experiments like the school’s.

The purpose of the experiment was to test if the worms could turn astronauts’ garbage from the ISS into compost.

There were no casualties from the explosion of the Orbital Sciences-built rocket shortly after liftoff on Wallops Island, Va.

Fortunately, the school’s hard work may not be in vain. The school’s principal said they’ve already been assured they will get another chance to send a new batch of worms into space, but there is no timetable yet.

The experiment wasn’t cheap. The school invested $20,000 from fundraising efforts and a school district grant to allow all 324 students at the academy who worked in teams of three and four to design experiments specifically for the space mission.

Twelve-year-old Cithlali Hernandez’s three-person team came up with the winning experiment involving the worms. They had to write a seven-page paper about te relevant and practical application of such an experiment, and scientists across the United States determined the winner. He said he was “disappointed and a little shocked” at the rocket mishap.