Orbital Sciences rocket explodes over pad

A non-recoverable rocket failed to send a Cygnus capsule to orbit and rendezvous with ISS. I guess those Halloween treats got tricked.

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

Reuters also has reports, and Smithsonian Air&Space has a link to their twittering in the article about last night's postponement due to a slow boat.

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/whats-deal-boat-scuttling-last-nights-antares-rocket-launch-180953176/

/dps

On 10/28/2014 7:44 PM, snidely wrote:
A non-recoverable rocket failed to send a Cygnus capsule to orbit and rendezvous with ISS. I guess those Halloween treats got tricked.

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

Reuters also has reports, and Smithsonian Air&Space has a link to their twittering in the article about last night's postponement due to a slow boat.

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/whats-deal-boat-scuttling-last-nights-antares-rocket-launch-180953176/

/dps


Naturally we will leave the final determination of the fault to the experts.

In the meantime... The initial explosion seemed to be at the base of
the first stage, which is right where you would expect it to be if a
main engine suffered a catastrophic failure like the one that
disassembled itself on the test stand.

I'll bet tonight there aren't too many folks at Orbital who are thinking
that using those bargain-basement surplus Russian moon engines was a
great idea.

On the other hand, I would be surprised if SpaceX never has their own
similar black day. While it's hard to argue with success, the Falcon
nine's many-engine approach multiplies the potential chances of engine
failure-caused disaster.

Vaughn

on 10/28/2014, Vaughn supposed :
On 10/28/2014 7:44 PM, snidely wrote:
A non-recoverable rocket failed to send a Cygnus capsule to orbit and
rendezvous with ISS. I guess those Halloween treats got tricked.

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

Reuters also has reports, and Smithsonian Air&Space has a link to their
twittering in the article about last night's postponement due to a slow
boat.

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/whats-deal-boat-scuttling-last-nights-antares-rocket-launch-180953176/

/dps


Naturally we will leave the final determination of the fault to the experts.

In the meantime... The initial explosion seemed to be at the base of the
first stage, which is right where you would expect it to be if a main engine
suffered a catastrophic failure like the one that disassembled itself on the
test stand.

I'll bet tonight there aren't too many folks at Orbital who are thinking that
using those bargain-basement surplus Russian moon engines was a great idea.

On the other hand, I would be surprised if SpaceX never has their own similar
black day. While it's hard to argue with success, the Falcon nine's
many-engine approach multiplies the potential chances of engine
failure-caused disaster.

They lost a couple of Falcon 1s, which didn't have 9 times the failure
modes.

/dps

--
There's nothing inherently wrong with Big Data. What matters, as it
does for Arnold Lund in California or Richard Rothman in Baltimore, are
the questions -- old and new, good and bad -- this newest tool lets us
ask. (R. Lerhman, CSMonitor.com)

In article ,
says...

Naturally we will leave the final determination of the fault to the
experts.

In the meantime... The initial explosion seemed to be at the base of
the first stage, which is right where you would expect it to be if a
main engine suffered a catastrophic failure like the one that
disassembled itself on the test stand.

I'll bet tonight there aren't too many folks at Orbital who are thinking
that using those bargain-basement surplus Russian moon engines was a
great idea.

On the other hand, I would be surprised if SpaceX never has their own
similar black day. While it's hard to argue with success, the Falcon
nine's many-engine approach multiplies the potential chances of engine
failure-caused disaster.

True, for expendables. But hopefully in 2015 we'll see the first reuse
of a Falcon 9R first stage. Once you start reusing engines, you can at
least eliminate some of the "infant mortality" problems.

It's easy enough to argue whatever did in the Antares first stage was
just this sort of problem. When a launch vehicle fails on the order of
a few thousand feet of the launch pad, it's an infant mortality problem.

You can eliminate these sorts of problems by test flying the entire
stage, recover, refuel, and refly. Since fuel costs are currently so
low (last I checked 0.3% of the cost of a Falcon 9 launch), such a test
flight ought not add much cost to the overall operations cost of a
reusable stage. Better to lose a first stage on a test flight than with
a customer's payload on top.

Jeff

--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

The issue here is compounded by the fact that the rocket didn't get far enough down range to avoid taking out what appears to be some pad infrastructure. Hard to tell from the video but the subsequent pad fire video does show the loss of one light pole among other things. Not necessarily a big deal in and of itself but I can't help but feel this is just the tip of the iceberg. The first few seconds of flight are so important to achieve some degree of down range. Here's one case where you can make an argument for HOTOL. Where a degree of reliance on passive measures plus the fact that operating vehicle transits quickly away from vital infrastructure on takeoff can avoid inducing more damage than might otherwise be the case.. As vehicle reliability improves this becomes less important over time.

I'm left with the impression that the most costly in terms of recovery time (& perhaps materials) for this mishap will be the pad rebuild. If this were to happen to SpaceX we'd be in a real bind for ISS resupply until Boca Chica comes on-line.

Dave

On 10/29/2014 8:44 AM, David Spain wrote:
If this were to happen to SpaceX we'd be in a real bind for ISS resupply until Boca Chica comes on-line.

This is exactly why NASA selected multiple venders. Had Orbital been
the only one, we could be "down hard" for up to a year.

"snidely" wrote in message ...
A non-recoverable rocket failed to send a Cygnus capsule to orbit and rendezvous
with ISS. I guess those Halloween treats got tricked.

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

Reuters also has reports, and Smithsonian Air&Space has a link to their twittering
in the article about last night's postponement due to a slow boat.

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/whats-deal-boat-scuttling-last-nights-antares-rocket-launch-180953176/

/dps

If the AJ-26 / NK-33 turns out to be the culprit then Orbital will be in deep
sh*t. They previously claimed to have mitigated any risk of engine failure
after investigating the previous disintegration of the NK-33 during testing.


But lets see what the investigation turns up.

On 29/10/2014 10:44 AM, snidely wrote:
A non-recoverable rocket failed to send a Cygnus capsule to orbit and rendezvous with ISS. I guess those Halloween treats got tricked.

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

Reuters also has reports, and Smithsonian Air&Space has a link to their twittering in the article about last night's postponement due to a slow boat.

http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/whats-deal-boat-scuttling-last-nights-antares-rocket-launch-180953176/

/dps


I was a bit surprised that the range safety officer didn't destroy it
before it landed back on the pad.

I suppose it's possible the explosion on the ground is safer, but I'd
have to wonder, given that it means that the launch tower is available
to be made into shrapnel.

Sylvia.

In article ,
says...

I'm left with the impression that the most costly in terms of
recovery time (& perhaps materials) for this mishap will be the
pad rebuild. If this were to happen to SpaceX we'd be in a real
bind for ISS resupply until Boca Chica comes on-line.

Would it be possible to launch from the existing SpaceX pad at
Vandenburg pad to ISS?

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...

On 10/29/2014 8:44 AM, David Spain wrote:
If this were to happen to SpaceX we'd be in a real bind for ISS resupply until Boca Chica comes on-line.

This is exactly why NASA selected multiple venders. Had Orbital been
the only one, we could be "down hard" for up to a year.

Agreed. That was a true lesson from the space shuttle program. Not the
"separation of crew and cargo" crap that keeps coming up. If Antares
had a crew on top, the launch escape system would likely have saved
them. You can see in the video how slowly events unfolded since the
first stage was liquid fueled. Yes there was a fire and some
"disassembly" of the first stage, but it wasn't until the range safety
charges were fired (and the vehicle hit the ground) that the relatively
big explosion happened.

Imagine if that had been a case rupture of a solid first stage. That
would have been far more ugly. Not using big solid stages is a second
true lesson from shuttle, but NASA clearly didn't get that memo. :-(

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer