Antares launch/failure discussion.

[kanelives]

everyone go make a successful ksp launch in honor

[Sky_walker]

Interesting - seems like there was some "classified crypto equipment" that they are trying to secure now.

US can't keep out it's military toys out of ISS, can it?

[hugix]

My guess is (bases purely on the visuals I've seen) that something went wrong in the second stage.

During T0 there is a bright yellow flash on top of the rocket Almost as if the second engine has ignited. At T+6 the eninge build up enough power to burn into the first stage which then exploded.

[Agricola]

Agree if design flaw we would have expect to see the first or second launch fail, rather than the 5th.

[rpayne88]

If it did, there is going to be a bit of a problem. Assateague National Seashore is less than five miles north of Wallops. I don't think the local wildlife, horses in particular, are going to like hydrazine.

Edit: and it didn't quote Jeff Bird for some reason.

[Sky_walker]

We don't need 3 topics discussing the same thing.

[Woopert]

I'm really getting tired of these nationalistioc Americans bad-mouthing everything the russians do. The problem on the N-1 was the fuel feeds and complicated plumbing to 30 of these engines(they were NK-15's as well, not the more modern NK-33's). Not the engines themselves. Besides that, these engines are manufactured and produced by Aerojet. Considering this is probably a manufacturing flaw rather than design-related I don't see why this despisement of the Russian engine.

I'm not bad mouthing the Russians, I have no problem with the Russians themselves. I'm trying to avoid politics as much as possible as that violates forum rules, but considering the state of world affairs using a foreign rocket engine is not wise, regardless of how many we have stockpiled or how cheap they are. One of the key marketing points of SpaceX is that they are 100% domestic and American produced, everything in house, to save money and it just makes sense.

NK-33 does not have a good history and is not a wise choice for a rocket, especially one carrying vital food for the astronauts/cosmonauts on the station. Also, Aerojet doesn't manufacture the engines. They rebranded old NK-33 engines from the 60's.

Also, the AJ-26 proposal for SLS boosters.. yeah that's out of the question now.

[hugix]

this is not about the launch, but about the failure. Lets just put our minds together and see if we can come to the same conclusion as the board.

[Sky_walker]

More images:

Seems like Antares made it to the CNN headlines & breaking news, first time ever: http://edition.cnn.com/

Edited October 28, 2014 by Sky_walker

[ANWRocketMan]

In that sense I totally agree with you.

[Motokid600]

That ****** boat!

[ANWRocketMan]

I'm not bad mouthing the Russians, I have no problem with the Russians themselves. I'm trying to avoid politics as much as possible as that violates forum rules, but considering the state of world affairs using a foreign rocket engine is not wise, regardless of how many we have stockpiled or how cheap they are. One of the key marketing points of SpaceX is that they are 100% domestic and American produced, everything in house, to save money and it just makes sense.

NK-33 does not have a good history and is not a wise choice for a rocket, especially one carrying vital food for the astronauts/cosmonauts on the station. Also, Aerojet doesn't manufacture the engines. They rebranded old NK-33 engines from the 60's.

Also, the AJ-26 proposal for SLS boosters.. yeah that's out of the question now.

Oh, in that sense I totally agree with you.

I was wronmg on the manufacturing then(sorry).

The engine was and probably still is too far ahead of its time.

[AppleDavidJeans]

Apparently, a rapid unplanned disassembly (R.U.D.) happened in the engine section of the Antares, and so the rocket lost velocity and fell on its tail. Apparently, 200k pounds of fuel + a rocket falling to the ground shortly after launch on its rear end tends to make 5,000 pounds of science and classified equipment go up in flames.

Oh, btw, Wikipedia is quick to update things

[kinnison]

recap of the explosion over the launchpad... should have used more struts

From my armchair and amatuer opinion it looks like something was leaking from the top of the booster stage when it was ignited. then the booster went Ka-Bloowy leaving the upper stages with nothing to go up with. It went down and destroyed the launchpad.

Waiting for someone to Blame Obama, and then call for NASA's budget to be cut to nothing to prevent this kind of waste.

Hope ISS has enough supplies until the next one. I heard the canned borcht is the food of last resort.

[lajoswinkler]

I suppose one more reason why there's no one there yet is hydrazine. There had to be some of it aboard. It's better to let it evaporate from the site before sending HAZMAT-suited folks.

[Kulebron]

There's no reason to reject the entire engine model just because of common sense feelings, like they're old, they have bad history, etc. This is a question of engineering and testing.

Even if the relationships between the states are tighter, didn't Aerojet get a licence to produce new NK-33 (AJ-26) at home?

Edited October 28, 2014 by Kulebron

[Robotengineer]

I'm curious what this means for SpaceX, as well as the ISS. After watching the video definitely looks like an engine explosion, and it makes me appreciate the new explosion effects in KSP.

[Agricola]

AS I posted earlier, early reports suggest a fail just 6 seconds after launch, fuel leak maybe, resulting in explosion after about 15 seconds into launch.

[Fingal]

Why are people here laughing? Rocket failures are no joke...

I've been watching launches since the first space shuttle went up. I've learnt that you can't have progress without failures along the way, it's a fact of life. So when the inevitable happens with an unmanned spacecraft, just enjoy the fireworks and move on to the next one.

[Sky_walker]

For those worried: Got another confirmation that this accident won't cause any problems to the ISS operations.

[Jeff Bird]

Just goes to show. What we do on our PCs isn't that easy IRL.

[Kryten]

Given these engine are forty years old, and one of these modernised ones has exploded before (on a test stand), it and pretty obvious what the most likely explanation is.

[Sky_walker]

Conference is planned for 8pm ET / 00:00 GMT.

[GoSlash27]

For those worried: Got another confirmation that this accident won't cause any problems to the ISS operations.

Good to hear. Who's picking up the slack? The Russians?

-Slashy

[Higgs]

BTW: This was the launch with Planetary Resources space telescope. It most likely will be a huge setback for the company.

Not to mention that it'll be a setback for entire CCDev.

Unless that was part of the 5000 pounds of supplies i doubt it was a telescope