BREAKING: NASA Rocket Explodes Shortly After Take-Off

[X_Torric_X]

IFL Science
October 28, 2014 | by Lisa Winter

Quote:

Note: This is a developing story and this article will be updated as more details become available.

Moments after lifting off at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the unmanned Antares rocket meant to bring cargo to the International Space Station exploded. This was to be the third commercial resupply mission by Orbital Sciences. The explosion occurred at 6:22 pm EDT on October 28, six seconds after launching.

No injuries or deaths are believed to have occurred because of this failed launch, with all personnel at Wallops safe and accounted for.

NASA officials have described the event as a “catastrophic anomaly” but have not pointed to a cause of explosion yet. NASA reports that the team did not experience any warning signs prior to launch that there would be a problem.

The Cygnus spacecraft atop the rocket was carrying 2290 kg (5050 lbs) of cargo for the International Space Station, including the Arkyd-3 satellite. The launch was scheduled for October 27, but had to be scrubbed at the last minute due to a sail boat downrange of the launch site.

A press conference will be held at 8:30 pm EDT to discuss the preliminary findings of the failed launch.

[Roy Cura]

The rocket was designed by a private contractor (Orbital Space Corp.), not NASA engineers. NASA’s been hiring lots of outsiders lately.

[David2074]

In light of the explosion / failed mission the company's recent quote in a Geekwire article is rather unfortunate.
In hindsight probably not the best thing to have said for company image.

Asteroid mining company Planetary Resources launching first spacecraft

“Our goal is to have three people in their pajamas and an iPad operating the spacecraft, at most,” says Chris Lewicki, the Redmond-based company’s president and chief engineer, who was the flight director for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.


OOPS! lol

[BF-dragontshd-40]

NASA contractor =/= NASA. Engineers and lawyers are two different professions in government.
Welp, there goes WFF. It use to be that WFF only launch sound rockets. Antares changed that. Now it can't launch anything for a while.

[God Emperor Baldur]

They couldn't keep it up for long before exploding all over the place.

[Nyadriel]

My response was "who tripped the switch? "


I mean, seconds after it launches, the self-destruct kicks in? Yeah... Other thing is that this one fails, but the other one over there in - where was it? launches successfully. wut? stare

[TANRailgun]

Nyadriel

My response was "who tripped the switch? "


I mean, seconds after it launches, the self-destruct kicks in? Yeah... Other thing is that this one fails, but the other one over there in - where was it? launches successfully. wut? stare

wut?

When has anything been said about a self-destruct malfunction? Yeah, the thing exploded but that doesn't mean the self-destruct function was activated, intentionally or otherwise. These are extraordinarily complex and dangerous vehicles, and they DO explode, this is far from the first, and it won't be the last.

Further, one rocket failing while another succeeds in no way implies conspiracy. That's like finding a double yolk egg among a dozen normal ones and blaming the Illuminati.

[a happy whale]

Quote:

unmanned

phew that's a relief

[Manny8O]

I saw news, last night. The UT students and staffs designed the satellite and put in the rocket (no people inside).

After the rocket exploded, the UT students and staffs silenced. They immediately checked their design to find missing something.

They announced they'll re-build another one, next year.

[Texadar]

Nyadriel

My response was "who tripped the switch? "


I mean, seconds after it launches, the self-destruct kicks in? Yeah... Other thing is that this one fails, but the other one over there in - where was it? launches successfully. wut? stare

Yeah man, why do these metal boxes full of combustible liquid violently explode if something goes bad?

[Ju Tru Nix]

X_Torric_X

IFL Science
October 28, 2014 | by Lisa Winter

Quote:

The launch was scheduled for October 27, but had to be scrubbed at the last minute due to a sail boat downrange of the launch site.

A press conference will be held at 8:30 pm EDT to discuss the preliminary findings of the failed launch.

Don't they have ways to post/ warn away boaters before launches?

[azulmagia]

I hope this will disabuse people of the idea of private-sector space travel. But I doubt it.

[BF-dragontshd-40]

Ju Tru Nix

X_Torric_X

IFL Science
October 28, 2014 | by Lisa Winter

Quote:

The launch was scheduled for October 27, but had to be scrubbed at the last minute due to a sail boat downrange of the launch site.

A press conference will be held at 8:30 pm EDT to discuss the preliminary findings of the failed launch.

Don't they have ways to post/ warn away boaters before launches?

Yeah, but Who reads them?
(How did the boat thing spread?)

[God Emperor Baldur]

azulmagia

I hope this will disabuse people of the idea of private-sector space travel. But I doubt it.

Because NASA never had a rocket explode on them?

[azulmagia]

God Emperor Baldur

azulmagia

I hope this will disabuse people of the idea of private-sector space travel. But I doubt it.

Because NASA never had a rocket explode on them?

That's not really the reason to reject the privatization of space. The classic takedown is Bob Black's "The Space Between Daniel Ust's Ears":

Quote:

It is all too obvious that Daniel Ust’s admiration for capitalism is in inverse proportion to his knowledge of how it works. Business is not, as such, antigovernment, and government is not, as such, anti-business. They clash from time to time, but then so do businesses with businesses, and governments with governments. They are the same kind of animal: they are predators. Their prey: all the rest of us.

These are just the obvious idiocies in Ust’s dogmatics. It is well to take a step back to ponder the larger meaning of this kind of ideological posturing. Ust adduces, as an advantage of private-sector space business, that on earth, pollution will eventually go down, etc. Sure, just like NAFTA means that the USA exports its pollution problem to Mexico. No need to change our ways. As Robert Heinlein put it, “We’ve used this planet up, let’s get another one.” After this planet, this solar system, after that — you get the idea. Meanwhile the whole assumption — that you can soil your own nest since you can always find another one — is already, literally, crashing down on our heads. The junk we’ve put into orbit for the last 30 years is already falling back, and though it is statistically improbable that what reaches the Earth will do any damage, what will be the public reaction when it eventually does? More important, the junk still in orbit is already a hazard to putting more junk in orbit. What business will find it profitable to clean up (at a cost of billions) all the space rubbish which already endangers anything newly put up there?

We can no longer solve our problems by shipping them off somewhere else, to Mexico, to Mars, to anywhere. The place to solve them is here. The time to solve them is now. There is no salvation in any imaginary futuristic techno-fix. It’s never worked before, and there’s no reason to think it ever will.

(link)