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Orbital Sciences rocket explodes moments after launch

RogueWarrior

RogueWarrior

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An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying an unmanned cargo craft bound for the International Space Station exploded into flames Tuesday evening moments after launch at NASA's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.The countdown had seemed routine and the rocket lifted off as scheduled, but then burst into a fireball seconds later. The debris crashed down on the launching pad, spreading fiery wreckage around the area.
NASA said all personnel are accounted for and no one was injured.
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:july_4th:

Nasa Nasa Nasa.
 
I deeply dislike Orbital Sciences so if it had to happen to one company I'm glad it was then. My only immediate reaction is that this shouldn't be used by certain partisans to tar the commercial space program.
 
RogueWarrior said:
Better video


Looks like the engine nozzle blew up.
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Impressive !

Igniting a hundreds of thousands of pounds of Liquid O2 and liquid Hydrogen is inherently dangerous.
 
Dammit, I have a friend who is an engineer with Orbital, working on rockets. (playing pub trivia with him tonight)

Not cool.

This rocket uses what is essentially a cleaned up spare Soviet engine designed for the failed N-1 rocket that the Soviets built to send cosmonauts to the moon, but the rocket failed in all 4 launches (thing had 29 rockets on it).

The upper stage had a new rocket debuting on this launch, but it never got to fire. Nasty.
 
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Sherman123 said:
I deeply dislike Orbital Sciences so if it had to happen to one company I'm glad it was then.
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Can you elaborate on that? I mean, we seem to be all out of former Nazis to build rockets for us that don't blow up. :shrug:
 
Ahlevah said:
Can you elaborate on that? I mean, we seem to be all out of former Nazis to build rockets for us that don't blow up. :shrug:
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I think they are a bad company that has benefited from a virtually empty field. They get contracts because the alternative to doing business with Orbital Sciences was ULA and for decades that was pretty much it. In the past few years they've lost nearly a billion dollars worth of satellites and their rockets and capsule are pretty crappy. It's more expensive to launch an Antares that can carry less cargo than a Falcon-9 or an Atlas V, and the Cygnus burns up on re-entry. They haven't done anything innovative since their Pegasus rockets, they got into COTS pretty much exclusively because they are a legacy player. We lose money and invest in bad technology when we give Orbital contracts and I think it's time to move on.
 
Pssh. I can do better than that.

*fires up Kerbal Space Program*
 
Could have been sabotage. Even a contractor should have this down pat by now. We are once again in a cold war and we have other players -- China and India.

Lest you think it's far fetched the Chinese have been caught stealing and copying advanced technology.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
Could have been sabotage. Even a contractor should have this down pat by now. We are once again in a cold war and we have other players -- China and India.

Lest you think it's far fetched the Chinese have been caught stealing and copying advanced technology.
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Oh my god stop. It wasn't sabotage. Please don't open a can of crazy in this thread.
 
Sherman123 said:
I think they are a bad company that has benefited from a virtually empty field. They get contracts because the alternative to doing business with Orbital Sciences was ULA and for decades that was pretty much it. In the past few years they've lost nearly a billion dollars worth of satellites and their rockets and capsule are pretty crappy. It's more expensive to launch an Antares that can carry less cargo than a Falcon-9 or an Atlas V, and the Cygnus burns up on re-entry. They haven't done anything innovative since their Pegasus rockets, they got into COTS pretty much exclusively because they are a legacy player. We lose money and invest in bad technology when we give Orbital contracts and I think it's time to move on.
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Just another example of how private industry always gets it done completely, efficiently, cost effectively and profitably whereas government can never do anything right.....
 
EnigmaO01 said:
Could have been sabotage. Even a contractor should have this down pat by now. We are once again in a cold war and we have other players -- China and India.

Lest you think it's far fetched the Chinese have been caught stealing and copying advanced technology.
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No, it wasn't.

Orbital has some problems with its VA based rocket folks working on this one.

The Phoenix based ones working on Minotaur are doing fine. Problem with this is, 40+ year old Soviet engines.
 
upsideguy said:
Just another example of how private industry always gets it done completely, efficiently, cost effectively and profitably whereas government can never do anything right.....
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Actually, SpaceX is kicking major ass with the Falcon 9, every flight has been good, and the heavy lifter is coming soon, and the Falcon 9 should be man rated for human crews in about a year or so.
 
Sherman123 said:
I think they are a bad company that has benefited from a virtually empty field. They get contracts because the alternative to doing business with Orbital Sciences was ULA and for decades that was pretty much it. In the past few years they've lost nearly a billion dollars worth of satellites and their rockets and capsule are pretty crappy. It's more expensive to launch an Antares that can carry less cargo than a Falcon-9 or an Atlas V, and the Cygnus burns up on re-entry. They haven't done anything innovative since their Pegasus rockets, they got into COTS pretty much exclusively because they are a legacy player. We lose money and invest in bad technology when we give Orbital contracts and I think it's time to move on.
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Not an empty field. They beat out Kestrel for the ISS launches. There are plenty of other companies out there, including Sea Launch, and Sierra Nevada, and a few others that aren't as far along.

Orbital has other rockets that are proven and will do the job. Remember, SpaceX blew up its first 3 launches.
 
NASA and all of rocket science (at least those that plan launches from the ground) are stupid. They could easily tow a rocket up in a balloon and launch it in the stratosphere....

Most fuel is wasted defying gravity..... Imagine how much further we could go (or how less expensive) a mission would be if we didn't have to defy gravity.
 
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Another Obama failure!
 
Kobie said:
Another Obama failure!
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Well Obama basically defunded NASA...

I bet the private sector puts a man on Mars before our government does.
 
I bet Obama purposely blew up the rocket to distract us from Benghazi.
 
Kobie said:
I bet Obama purposely blew up the rocket to distract us from Benghazi.
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I'll bet Obama isn't intelligent enough to even think of such a distraction - he currently distracts people with public fainting actors.

"Wag the Dog" concepts are far to complicated for him to even imagine.
 
Mr.Nick said:
I'll bet Obama isn't intelligent enough to even think of such a distraction - he currently distracts people with public fainting actors.

"Wag the Dog" concepts are far to complicated for him to even imagine.
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Yeah! Because he's stupid! And lazy!
 
Mr.Nick said:
Maybe - that or he lets his minions go to work on his behalf while he plays golf.
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You mean the president doesn't singlehandedly perform every function of the federal government? Surely you jest.

Next time I see my mailman, I'll let him know he's doing Obama's job.
 
Kobie said:
You mean the president doesn't singlehandedly perform every function of the federal government? Surely you jest.

Next time I see my mailman, I'll let him know he's doing Obama's job.
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Well it take Congress - in which democrats are in aw of Obama - but when that doesn't work he just resorts to executive orders to build a larger government.
 
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