NASA Antares Rocket Launch Failure - Huge Explosion

[yuiyoshida]

NASA has been launching these things since the 1950s.. YOU would think they would eventually get these right.

[jimlup]

1. I guess that is why they call it "rocket science"

not so easy...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Jet airplanes have been flying since the '40s, but once in awhile one crashes.

Automobiles have been around for about 100 years, but there are still accidents.

Personal computers have been in use since the early '80s, but now and then a hard drive crashes.

Stuff happens for a lot of reasons. There is no such thing as a system that is completely impervious to failures.

[DeSwiss]

15. Airline flights: EACH DAY

It's a question of probabilities......

[Trajan]

3. Isn't this private company?

NASA is involved, but it's Orbital Sciences baby ...

[Warpy]

6. Yes, they've built rockets for NASA

and it looks like this one was launched from Kennedy. Apparently it had a scientific payload, which makes the loss more tragic.

It's a hella good bang, though. I hope there were no injuries.

It almost looks like the bottom of the liquid fuel rockets fell off. All of a sudden, it just lost thrust, fell, and went boom.

[jakeXT]

8. NASA's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/orbital-sciences-rocket-explodes-moments-after-launch/

[Warpy]

12. Interesting, thanks

This is what happened when one exploded a lot closer to takeoff and over land. That's mostly burning solid fuel raining down. No one was hurt but parking lots full of cars were destroyed. My dad lived 14 miles south, said it took forever to put the forest fires out.

[MannyGoldstein]

19. "We've had an anomaly"

Glad it wasn't more serious than an anomaly.

Whew.

[Warpy]

25. Yeah, they're geniuses at understatement.

Like "secure the area" means RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES!

[MannyGoldstein]

27. The first hint that I heard of a problem with today's launch

Was something on the Internet like "Orbital Sciences are reviewing the flight data" or some such silliness.

"Sucker blew the hell to smithereens" would have been the better update, but what do I know - I'm not an Internet journalist/

[Trajan]

18. Fair disclosure ...

I worked for the company that built the Apollo capsule and the Space Shuttle ... I am definitely biased ...

As much as I hope for the best outcomes for these 'private' launches, I still doubt that the upper echelons of an Orbital Sciences or a Space X management team gets (or cares a lot about) the complexity and the risk of rocket operations ...

The corporate mindset can be dangerous when clouded by dollar signs ...

Launches to the ISS should be public domain ... an act by and for the commons ... I dislike inserting a profit motive between a rocket and it's (possible) passengers ...

[JDPriestly]

7. Yes.

The third Orbital Sciences cargo mission to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract is scheduled to launch at 6:22 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 28, from Pad 0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

NASA Television coverage of Tuesday's launch will begin at 5:30 p.m. A post-launch news conference will follow at approximately 8 p.m.

A Monday launch attempt was scrubbed because of a boat down range in the trajectory Orbital’s Antares rocket would have flown had it lifted off.

A Tuesday launch will result in the Cygnus spacecraft arriving at the space station early Sunday, Nov. 2. NASA TV coverage of rendezvous and berthing will begin at 3:30 a.m. with grapple at approximately 4:58 a.m.

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/launch-of-third-orbital-sciences-mission-to-space-station-rescheduled-nasa-tv/

Republicans like to tell us that private enterprise does things better, more efficiently and cheaper than the government. Well, NASA wasn't perfect. But obviously privatizing NASA's work hasn't helped to make our rocket program any better than it was.

[Trajan]

20. This would have been the first docking of Cygnus then?

I totally agree with your statement ... Space flight is NOT 'easy' ... I'm not comfortable with this activity in the private sphere ... rocket launches are just too persnickety to assume profit and safety can coexist together ...

[Mojorabbit]

4. Oh no! nt

[Old and In the Way]

5. Still a lot of points of failure. And it will always be this way, I think.

As Steve Buschemi said in the great sci_fi pic of a mining crew trying to save the world from an asteroid: "just think, this amazing machine is made up of 100,000 individual parts made by the lowest bidder!" Or something like that. Oh well, no lives were lost and lessons were learned.

[unrepentant progress]

9. In this case the machine was made of Ukranian components manufactured in the 1960s-1970s

Those are old recycled Soviet NK-33 engines on that first stage, and it's looking like there was a blowout of the turbopump almost immediately after ignition. Those are very complex engines which vent to the side and are prone to blowouts. We'll see what the investigation shows though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33

[Old and In the Way]

10. Well, there you go. Could be a ukranian component....could have been India, Chinese, or US.

But when we bite on cheap, don't be surprised when we get bitten back. There's sometime a reason when similR component cost drastically different....it is in the testing or chemistry or attention to tolerances. As we move further away from actual manufacturing, I suspect we will see more catastrophic failures made by non-US companies bidding on price with oversight by 20 something tech folks with no understanding of what they are evaluating. This old fart could be wrong, though.

[unrepentant progress]

11. We'll know more soon I think

They may be recycled Soviet engines, but they're reconditioned by Aerojet. And my theory could be hogwash. There's certainly going to be enough failure to spread around.

[paleotn]

14. This old fart thinks you're probably spot on. (nt)

[paleotn]

13. Happens....

...no matter how tried and true the launch vehicle, there's always a risk, even with solid boosters. Anytime you're dealing with liquid propellants, as in this case, the risk goes up. The engines, at least one of which obviously failed spectacularly, are modified old Soviet NK-33s, designed for the Soviet manned lunar program back in the day that never quite got off the ground. Sort of the Soviet version of the F-1s that powered the Saturn V.

[DeSwiss]

16. Probably had something flammable on-board.

- K&R

[KeepItReal]

17. That looked like a very crowded launch area...buildings and such

Hope they were not occupied.

That water tower is awfully close as well.

[markpkessinger]

21. Makes me admire all the more the courage of those . . .

. . . who willingly place themselves atop these things in order to be shot into space!

[padruig]

22. getting things right

the title of this YouTube video is misleading

this was a launch of the Orbital Sciences Antares launch vehicle with the Cygnus unmanned cargo carrier

both built by Orbital Sciences

the launch facility was the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the coast of Virginia

this work was conducted under a under NASA contract to deliver needed provisions and experiments to the ISS / National Lab



currently NASA is building a new launch vehicle, the SLS (Space Launch System) with a cargo capability of 70 to 140 tonnes (more than five times the Space Shuttle)

[Duppers]

23. Thank you!!! I was also going to post that.

[Duppers]

24. This unmaned launch was CONTRACTED out!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/us/nasa-rocket-explodes/index.html

[mindwalker_i]

26. Somebody get me a hot dog!

And a marshmallow.

[DreamGypsy]

28. You win some, you lose some ...

...some are rained out. You always suit up.

Thank you NASA for your best efforts. Your vision keeps alive the prospect of humanity's future.