When the crew at Orbital Sciences hit the big red button to launch the Antares rocket into space full of supplies and equipment for the international space station, they expected it to be another launch like they have had hundreds of times before. In an instant it turned into something they had never seen before because the rocket that was accelerating into the heavens suddenly stalled and crashed back to Earth, virtually in the same spot it launched from and exploded in a fury that was reportedly felt as many as 100 miles away. The rocket was unmanned and as best we know there were no people injured or vaporized on the ground when the massive explosion occurred at the launch facility in Virginia.
We live in a world that is simultaneously amazing and depressing when it comes to this stuff. Depressing in the fact that shooting stuff into space has become such a regular event it only becomes news when the rocket explodes like this and amazing for virtually the same reasons. Regular beer drinking guys like me have absolutely no idea how complicated it is to shoot a rocket into space and have it actually meet up with another object hurtling around the Earth at incredible speeds. We can’t fathom it and even if we could, we still wouldn’t get it.
This was a costly failure of course. Rockets aren’t cheap and apparently the tally for this failure is hundreds of millions of dollars or something to that effect. We’re pretty sure Flo isn’t going to answer the call at the insurance company on this one. From what we have read, the Antares used an old Russian rocket motor to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. When I say old, I mean like 40+ year old technology, not sure about the parts. We’re guessing that there will be some thorough inspections of equipment before another one is sent towards the heavens.
If you are wondering about what will happen to the people in the space station, apparently the Russians are scheduled to shoot a rocket full of stuff up to them soon, maybe as soon as this week. You can only imagine how they’ll handle this occasion, assuming their lift off goes well. Things aren’t exactly chummy between us now and given the chance to get one up in the PR department, old Vlad isn’t going to miss a chance.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THE ANTARES ROCKET FAILURE AND EXPLOSION HERE – TALK ABOUT A TOUGH DAY AT THE OFFICE!
Great accomplishments often mean great risks. The rewards are worth it.
Hot, very-efficient ’70s Russian motors, bought cheap. The trade-off may be reliablity. Doesn’t bode well for Orbital Sciences…the guys who build/buy expensive motors are likely feeling a little more justified this morning.
Agreed and Agreed. Who again wants to strap themselves a top a rocket built by the lowest bidder?
Interestingly enough the first news article that I watched the video from immediately cued up after the video played, the successful previous launch of the same rocket model. Still a sight to see.
Russians design some good rocket motors, their production of them however is not as good. I’m guessing fuel pump failure and/or burned through the combustion chamber when the regenerative cooling failed. It could be a software failure throttling the rocket motor back when it wasn’t supposed to due to anomalous input or something similar as well. Did look like the range safety officer detonated it before it came completely down but all that likely did is save some of the infrastructure from impact damage from debris.
High performance liquid fuel rockets have a ton of complexity to them. Find it interesting that they do all the heavy lifting with the core stage and no boosters (which are typically solid fueled).
The Russians also launched a Soyuz booster with the Progress supply ship this morning already. Not that that thing hasn’t had problems recently as well but it is one of the oldest space lift systems still in use dating back to the early days of the Soviet space program and interestingly enough uses liquid boosters.
Interesting.