Posted on 10/28/2014 3:31:06 PM PDT by Perdogg
“We can’t get a load of pop tarts and tang to the ISS...”
But, NASA’s muslim outreach is outstanding.
I agree. Not everything is a political cause or should be politicized. A shuttle exploded during Reagan admin when we pumped millions into the program...a shuttle disintegrated upon reentry during the Bush administration. Now this during Obambi admin...sometimes sh!t just happens...I guess to some every event is a political event
That photo appears to be the moment of liftoff, not the subsequent explosion.
“Is this the craft using the cheap, surplus and very old Russian engines?”
The Russian engines used are pretty reliable, though at a time like this, one certainly could argue to the contrary....
I think these are the ones Putin threatened to not sell to us anymore in the wake of Ukraine sanctions.
It is. I’m thinking it started at the moment of liftoff. It looks like a “minor” explosion in the first second or so after ignition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHMmMgdcOSU
The rocket was an Antares rocket, by Orbital Sciences. This is, was going to be, the third crew resupply mission for the company.
NASA was the customer.
Livestream someone is saying don’t talk to the press. ? Orbital guy talking?
Wondering if the supply capsule had any kind of
emergency deployment provision?
It’s not man rated yet, but it would have been good
to know that it worked.
Another clown car thing that the rest of the world will snicker at.
Higher quality video on this page:
http://kfor.com/2014/10/28/antares-rocket-crashes-upon-launch-from-wallops-island/
Just before the explosion, the downblast did something weird. Looks like an engine failure.
I also heard earlier on live video that it had crypto cargo and to secure the area.
Whole heartedly agree and can only imagine the dollar loss on this mishap
It will be interesting to get the ‘after-action report’ on this.
If there was an anomaly at liftoff, it was not evident to me, but then I’m not an expert (and the only rocket launch that I’ve witnessed in person was in 1978 at Vandenburg AFB, and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night).
The Orbital Sciences Antares light-to-medium-lift launcher has two modified NK-33 in its first stage, a solid Castor 30-based second stage and an optional solid or hypergolic third stage.[16] The NK-33s are imported from Russia to the United States and modified into Aerojet AJ26s, which involves removing some electrical harnessing, adding U.S. electronics, qualifying it for U.S. propellants, and modifying the steering system.[1]
The Antares rocket was successfully launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on April 21, 2013. This marked the first successful launch of the NK-33 heritage engines built in early 1970s.[17]
Aerojet has agreed to recondition sufficient NK-33s to serve Orbital’s 16-flight NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract. Beyond that, it has a stockpile of 23 1960s and 1970s era engines. Kuznetsov no longer manufactures the engine, and the lack of a continuing supplier brings into question the long-term viability of Antares. To address this, Orbital has sought to buy RD-180 engines, but maker NPO Energomash’s contract with United Launch Alliance prevents this. Orbital has sued ULA for this, alleging anti-trust violations.[18] Aerojet has offered to work with Kuznetsov to restart production of new NK-33 engines, to assure Orbital of an ongoing supply.[19]
NK-33 and NK-43 are derived from the earlier NK-15 and NK-15V engines, respectively.
The engines are high-pressure, regeneratively cooled staged combustion cycle bipropellant rocket engines, and use oxygen-rich preburners to drive the turbopumps. The turbopumps require subcooled liquid oxygen (LOX) to cool the bearings. These kinds of burners are highly unusual, since their hot, oxygen-rich exhaust tends to attack metal, causing burn-through failures. The United States had not much investigated oxygen-rich combustion technologies until the Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator project in the early 2000s.[2] The Soviets, however, perfected the metallurgy behind this method. The nozzle was constructed from corrugated metal, brazed to an outer and inner lining, giving a simple, light, but strong structure. In addition, since the NK-33 uses subcooled LOX and kerosene, which have similar densities, a single rotating shaft could be used for both turbopumps.[3] Given its longer, heavier nozzle, the NK-43 ratio in vacuum is slightly heavier, with a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 120:1.[4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33
These guys are pretty good at what they do despite the occasional accident. Their accidents just happen to be very spectacular.
I wonder how many here could make the calculations for the Juno spacecraft. Launch a craft out past the orbit of mars where it begins to fall back toward the sun, coming to within a couple hundred miles of the earth like two years later for a gravity slingshot off to Jupiter.
Yep, despite much of said world struggling with pyrotechnics on any scale larger than a bottle rocket.
What kind of cargo? (some weird experiment?)
The puffs on the left side of the rocket reminded me of the puffs on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
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