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An Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket making only its fifth flight exploded seconds after launch from the Virginia coast Tuesday, erupting in a spectacular fireball and destroying an uncrewed Cygnus cargo ship in a disheartening failure for NASA\u2019s commercial space station resupply program.<\/p>\n
The mishap occurred about 15 seconds after liftoff from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA\u2019s Wallops Island Flight Facility as the 139-foot-tall two-stage rocket climbed away on the power of its two Russian-built first-stage engines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have ignition\u2026 and we have liftoff of the Antares Orb 3 mission to bring Cygnus on its third (resupply) mission to the ISS,\u201d said NASA\u2019s launch commentator as the Antares lifted off. \u201cMain engines at 108 percent, attitude nominal.\u201d<\/p>\n
At roughly that moment, the exhaust plume suddenly intensified, followed an instant later by a detonation of some sort at the base of the rocket. The booster, engulfed in flames, then slowly fell back to Earth, exploding in a titanic conflagration as its remaining liquid oxygen and refined kerosene propellants ignited in a huge fireball.<\/p>\n
At impact, flaming debris shot away into the night sky like a fireworks display, some of it presumably from solid propellant used in the rocket\u2019s second stage. Scattered fires erupted around the launch pad and a towering cloud of smoke climbed into the night sky.<\/p>\n
While property damage appeared extensive, Orbital officials said there were no injuries.<\/p>\n
It was not clear watching video replays of the launching what might have gone wrong, whether it involved one or both Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 first stage engines or some other system.<\/p>\n
An AJ26 engine being test fired last May for an Antares flight next year suffered a catastrophic failure 30 seconds into a planned 54-second burn. After a detailed failure investigation, Orbital managers cleared the powerplants for use in downstream missions based on corrective actions implemented in the wake of the failure.<\/p>\n
Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle commander and space station crew member who serves as Orbital\u2019s executive vice president, said engineers had not yet had time to examine telemetry in any detail and \u201cwe don\u2019t know whether the engine was involved in this or not. That\u2019s something we\u2019ll try to determine as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rocket\u2019s self-destruct system apparently was triggered at some point, but Culbertson said he did not yet know the timing of the events or how that might have contributed to the rocket\u2019s breakup. He warned the public not to pick up any debris that might be found in the area, saying unburned propellant could pose a threat.<\/p>\n
In any case, the loss was a major setback for Orbital\u2019s plans to establish routine space station access under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA calling for delivery of 20 tons of hardware over at least eight flights through 2016.<\/p>\n
It also marked a major setback for the space station program, which is attempting to fill in the void left by the space shuttle\u2019s retirement, using commercially developed cargo ships to carry supplies and equipment once carried by the manned orbiter. More than 5,000 pounds of cargo and supplies, including research hardware, student experiments, spare parts, food and crew supplies, 32 small nanosatellites and other gear, were lost in the mishap.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough time to lose a launch vehicle like this and it\u2019s payload,\u201d Culbertson said. \u201cIt\u2019s not as tragic as losing a life, and so we\u2019re very happy to report there were no injuries \u2026 and all we lost was hardware.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat hardware, however, is very important and very high value to the company and to our customers. Our team worked very hard for this mission. However, something went wrong and we will find out what that is. We\u2019ll determine the root cause, and we will correct that, and we will come back and fly here at Wallops again, hopefully in the very near future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Suffredini, NASA\u2019s space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said nothing critical was lost in the mishap.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a program, of course, we manage the station to protect for just such an event should it occur,\u201d he told reporters in a post-flight news conference. \u201cTherefore, we keep logistics on board the ISS to protect us for about four to six months in the event other logistics vehicles can\u2019t make it to ISS. So in fact, our logistics on board today, if no other spacecraft showed up, takes us well into next year. So from a consumables standpoint, we\u2019re in good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said NASA would work with researchers to get experiment hardware rebuilt and relaunched while assembling more spare parts to replace components lost in the accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the station\u2019s in great shape, the crew\u2019s in good shape, we\u2019ve got plenty of work for them to do on orbit and plenty of supplies on orbit to keep them going for quite some time,\u201d Suffredini said. \u201cSo while this event is very unfortunate, we will support the Orbital team as they work through their anomaly and continue to operate station well into the next several months while we wait for Orbital to return to flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orbital\u2019s Antares\/Cygnus cargo vehicle is one of two resupply systems funded by NASA in the wake of the shuttle\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n
Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, holds a $1.6 billion contract for at least 12 missions to deliver 44,000 pounds of cargo to the station. SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo ship remain operational, with the next two resupply flights planned for December and February.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry to hear about the @OrbitalSciences launch,\u201d SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk tweeted. \u201cHope they recover soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Russians, meanwhile, planned to launch a Progress supply craft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Wednesday.<\/p>\n
How the Antares failure might impact NASA\u2019s resupply strategy in the near term is not yet known. While a high-pressure nitrogen tank needed to top off tanks in the station\u2019s Quest airlock was lost with the Cygnus, the station is not expected to suffer any immediate problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile NASA is disappointed that Orbital Sciences\u2019 third contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station was not successful today, we will continue to move forward toward the next attempt once we fully understand today\u2019s mishap,\u201d Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA\u2019s chief of space operations, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrbital has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first two missions to the station earlier this year, and we know they can replicate that success. \u2026 Today\u2019s launch attempt will not deter us from our work to expand our already successful capability to launch cargo from American shores to the International Space Station.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next Antares\/Cygnus mission is currently planned for April, but that flight could be delayed pending the results of an investigation into the failure Thursday.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s launching went off on time at 6:22 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), roughly the moment Earth\u2019s rotation moved the pad into the plane of the space station\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n
After a final round of computer checks to verify the first stage engines were working properly, the Antares was released from its launching stand at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and the rocket began climbing away.<\/p>\n
The initial seconds of the ascent appeared normal as the booster climbed straight up, its first stage engines burning oxygen and RP-1 kerosene rocket fuel. But just 12 to 15 seconds or so after liftoff, a catastrophic failure occurred, appearing to originate at the base of the rocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we know so far is pretty much what everybody saw on the video,\u201d Culbertson said. \u201cThe ascent stopped, there was some, let\u2019s say, \u2018disassembly\u2019 of the first stage, it looked like, then it fell to Earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have access to all the data yet because of the way the accident investigation proceeds. We lock it all down and then we go through a very methodical process to recreate that data and evaluate it. So we don\u2019t have any early indications of exactly what might have failed, and we need some time to take a look at that, from a video and telemetry standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AJ26 first stage engines originally were developed for the Soviet Union\u2019s ill-fated N-1 moon rocket. When that program was cancelled after multiple launch failures, the engines were put in storage. In the 1990s, Aerojet Rocketdyne bought about 40 of the powerplants and modified them for use aboard U.S. rockets.<\/p>\n
The May 22 test failure \u201cobviously sparked a very thorough investigation led by Aerojet Rocketdyne, our engine supplier, supported fully by Orbital with a lot of help by NASA,\u201d Mike Pinkston, Orbital\u2019s Antares program manager, said before the company\u2019s third resupply flight in July. \u201cThat was a lengthy process.\u201d<\/p>\n
While details were not provided to the media, the engines used in July and in Tuesday\u2019s launching were subjected to exhaustive pre-flight checks and tests to make sure they were healthy and ready for flight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an extensively tested engine that is very robust and rugged and it goes through extensive testing by a team at (NASA\u2019s) Stennis Space Center before it\u2019s ever installed on the rocket and used as the powerplant,\u201d Culbertson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese engines were taken through the normal acceptance testing and pressure testing, etc., both at Stennis and here at Wallops prior to the launch. We didn\u2019t see any anomalies or anything that would indicate there were problems with the engine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS \u201cSPACE PLACE\u201d & USED WITH PERMISSION Updated after press briefing. Antares explodes moments after lifting off. Image: NASA TV An Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket making only its fifth flight exploded seconds after launch from the Virginia coast Tuesday, erupting in a spectacular fireball and destroying an uncrewed Cygnus cargo ship in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1871,639,3900,1699],"class_list":["post-16888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-antares","tag-cygnus","tag-orb-3","tag-wallops-island"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16888"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}