Unmanned NASA-contracted rocket explodes; damage is 'significant'

Started by garbon, October 28, 2014, 07:36:59 PM

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garbon

Time to delete this useless agency from the budget?

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

QuoteAn unmanned NASA-contracted rocket exploded early Tuesday evening along the eastern Virginia coast, causing a huge fireball but no apparent deaths.

According to NASA, the Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft were set to launch at 6:22 p.m. ET from the Wallops Flight Facility along the Atlantic Ocean. It was set to carry some 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station.

"There was failure on launch," NASA spokesman Jay Bolden said. "There was no indicated loss of life."

Bolden added, "There was significant property and vehicle damage. Mission control is trying to assess what went wrong."

Video shows the rocket rising into the air for a few seconds before an explosion. It then plummets back to Earth, causing more flames as it hits the ground. NASA tweeted that the failure occurred six seconds after launch.

Ed Encina was among those who watched it happen from about three miles away in the remote resort area.

"You immediately thought that everything was fine, because you see the big launch, and it brightened up the sky," said Encina, a Baltimore Sun reporter. "And then all of a sudden, you see a big fireball."

Encina also recalled a loud boom that caused "your feet (to) shake a little bit," as well as flames enveloping a roughly 100-yard area around the launch pad in a marshy area with brush.

Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, explained that the colossal fire was to be expected.

"It takes a lot of propellant to take a spacecraft of that size moving 25 times the speed of sound," Kelly told CNN, explaining how fast the rocket should have gone on its way to the space station. "So when it fails, it's usually pretty catastrophic."

Afterward, the launch director said on NASA's feed that all personnel were accounted for and that no injuries were reported.

He added that the spacecraft contained "classified ... equipment," and that there was a need to maintain the area around the debris field for investigative and potential security reasons given what was on board.

The launch had been scheduled for Monday, but that was scrubbed "because of a boat down range in the trajectory Antares would have flown had it lifted off," according to NASA.

Just before Tuesday's liftoff, the space agency reported "100% favorable" weather and "no technical concerns with the rocket or spacecraft being worked."

About one-third of the spacecraft's cargo consisted of material for scientific investigations, including a Houston school's experiment on pea growth and a study on blood flow in space.

There was about the same amount of cargo for supplies for the space station's crew, including more than 1,300 pounds of food.

It wasn't immediately clear what affect this failure will have on the space station crew or whether another mission will have to be added quickly to make sure they have everything they need.

If so, NASA itself won't do it directly. Since the end of its space shuttle program, it has relied on private companies -- specifically Orbital Sciences and SpaceX -- to bring materials to the space station, albeit using NASA facilities for launch.
Orbital's first such commercial supply mission, in fact, was in January out of the Wallops Flight Facility. The Virginia-based company has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to make eight flights to the space station under the space agency's commercial supply program.

Orbital becomes second private firm to send cargo to ISS

Tuesday's launch was supposed to be the fourth flight for Orbital until it ended, as the company acknowledged in a statement, in "catastrophic failure."

"We will conduct a thorough investigation immediately to determine the cause of this failure and what steps can be taken to avoid a repeat of this incident," said Frank Culbertson, the general manager of Orbital's Advanced Programs Group. "As soon as we understand the cause, we will begin the necessary work to return to flight to support our customers and the nation's space program."
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
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jimmy olsen

It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
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Jet: I see.
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--------------------------------------------
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mongers

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

CountDeMoney

We used to drive down to Wallops Island as a kid and watch the launches in the summertime.  Great, great stuff when you're a kid.   :)

Savonarola

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Ed Anger

Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

alfred russel

Quote from: Savonarola on October 29, 2014, 12:49:33 PM
I just watched a launch today over lunch.

FL:  1
VA:  0

When I was a kid in Florida, I was at a minor league baseball game. We could see the space shuttle going up way way off in the distance, and the game stopped as everyone watched. A decent "USA USA" chant got going. America.  :)
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

There's a fine line between salvation and drinking poison in the jungle.

I'm embarrassed. I've been making the mistake of associating with you. It won't happen again. :)
-garbon, February 23, 2014

CountDeMoney

Apparently the rocket engines this private company used were refurbished 40 year old Russian models.  :bleeding:

But hey, giving NASA money is bad;  let's give it to the private sector instead!

mongers

Quote from: alfred russel on October 29, 2014, 06:33:14 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on October 29, 2014, 12:49:33 PM
I just watched a launch today over lunch.

FL:  1
VA:  0

When I was a kid in Florida, I was at a minor league baseball game. We could see the space shuttle going up way way off in the distance, and the game stopped as everyone watched. A decent "USA USA" chant got going. America.  :)

By coincidence I'm about to play a rush album, the final track of which is called 'Countdown' and it's a celebration of the first shuttle flight iirc they were invited to attend by NASA.

I was at college (junior high equiv. 16-18 year olds) at the time of the first launch and they stopped classes so we could see it live.  :cool:

Space exploration was still regarded as important back then.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

11B4V

"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

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"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

grumbler

The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

garbon

Quote from: 11B4V on October 29, 2014, 06:50:39 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 28, 2014, 07:36:59 PM
Time to delete this useless agency from the budget?


:bleeding:

Oh is this in the spectrum like the NWS that day in and day out fails to accurately predict the weather but is nice to have around?
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Valmy

They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken an incredibly small percentage of everything we have, not just from us, from our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.  And what has NASA ever done for us?
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

grumbler

Quote from: Valmy on October 29, 2014, 06:54:25 PM
They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken an incredibly small percentage of everything we have, not just from us, from our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.  And what has NASA ever done for us?
There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of NASA once and for all.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

dps

Quote from: mongers on October 29, 2014, 06:47:45 PM

I was at college (junior high equiv. 16-18 year olds) at the time of the first launch and they stopped classes so we could see it live.  :cool: 

I thought you were a lot younger than that.