Business, Space

Antares

33 Comments

Orbital just had a very bad day.

[Update a while later]

You’ve probably seen the news all over by now, but here’s a spectator video [language warning]

[Update about 6 PDT]

Here’s another one, from a plane.

33 thoughts on “Antares”

  1. Just saw the image of Antares exploding on the Spaceflight Now FB page… the actual website seems to be down. Too much traffic?

    Yikes, looks like a massive explosion. Russian engines?

    1. From Wikipedia:

      “The first stage uses RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen (LOX) as propellants, powering two Aerojet AJ-26 engines, which are modified Soviet-built NK-33 engines. ..As Orbital has little experience with large liquid stages and LOX propellant, some of the Antares first stage work was contracted to the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye SDO, designers of the Zenit series. The core provided by Yuzhnoye includes propellant tanks, pressurization tanks, valves, sensors, feed lines, tubing, wiring and other associated hardware.”

      1. Words failed me, so went with the light hearted humor. It also happens to be true. Had this occurred the previous day, the boat wouldn’t have been harmed. It will be interesting if the cycling of the rocket (fueling loading/unloading or something else) contributed to the failure. Then Larry J’s suggestion to sue might be even more interesting.

  5. It appears to me that the engine failed catastrophically, then the RSO didn’t get on the button before impact. Even blowing it a hundred feet up would have done less damage to the launch pad. I feel bad for them, it has to be a really lousy day.

    1. According to this Aviation Week article, the RSO did send the destruct message. The upper stage is solid, so perhaps a self-destruct would rupture the casing. That would allow it to burn without becoming a ballistic projectile.

      It’s way too soon to tell what caused it. After reading some of the comments, I replayed it several times (I’d recorded it from the NASA Channel). The illumination on the payload shroud looked like reflected light or perhaps a lens flare to me. From what little I could tell, it looked like things started coming apart down around the engines. They’d just announced that the engines were running at 108% of rated power. This was the first flight with a more powerful – and heavier – upper stage so perhaps they were pushing the first stage engines a little harder than before. Who knows? Even if they tested the engines at 108% on the test stands (and I’m sure they did), all that might’ve done is reduce the strength margin for subsequent firings*. Perhaps they need to take one of the engines, run it at 108% on the test stand, shut it down, and then run it at 108% again.

      *In aviation, structures are required to withstand their full rated G loading without deformation and 150% of that G load without failure. However, exceeding the rated G level will weaken the structure so that it probably will fail below the 150% stress level later. Imagine you have a plane that’s rated at 6 Gs. You can pull 6 Gs repeatedly and nothing bad will happen. Things don’t start breaking until you get to 9 Gs. However, suppose you pull 7 Gs in a flight. Nothing will fail, but the overstressed structure will be weaker and will likely fail below the normal 9 G level after that.

  6. I haven’t seen an Antares launch previously, but what was all that debris coming off the payload shroud? Is that ice? Just as the nose cone goes above the picture frame, there is a yellow glow in that region, the camera view widens, and there seems to be a large debris cloud coming off the side of the nose. A few seconds later, it’s obvious that the rocket loses thrust and eventually falls back on the pad. Again, I’ve never seen one of these launch previously to know if the artifacts around the nose are usual or not, or have anything to do with the lose of thrust. Just wondering…

    1. I saw that too. My first thought was that a payload stage had ignited, or that lightning struck just as the nose cleared the lightning rods. On looking at the video again, a glow builds up just above the rocket right at liftoff, almost like a big capacitive discharge.

    2. I was thinking the upper sections were being illuminated by the big ball of fire that erupted down below.

      1. The light appears above the rocket immediately after liftoff. It could be a lens flare or reflection off extremely humid air, but I doubt t; I’ve seen a lot of launch videos from coastal launch facilities at the Cape, Kwajalein, and SeaLaunch, and I don’t recall seeing a flash of light above the rocket like that before. Any such reflection ought to be washed out by the extremely bright rocket exhaust, yet the flash above the rocket is just as bright, almost a ball lightning.

        At about T+2 and T+4 there are puffs coming out the midsection of the rocket on the left far side, which develops into a constant flow of hot gas on the left side of the rocket (left from the perspective of the NASA TV video I linked above, camera 12).

      2. I’m thinking its the light from the engines reflecting off the inside top of the lens hood on the camera, or possibly just a lens flare. At 0:08 the light seems to be moving down toward the rocket from above it, seemingly mirroring the motion of the bright engine exhaust.

      3. Ed and George, thank you both for considering my thoughts and responding. As Ed noted, I saw the flash, not used to seeing something there, and then could see the debris cloud to the left (in that frame) of the rocket. My only problem is the catastrophic loss of lift seemed to occur much further down. I wonder if the RSO actually did abort, then maybe there is something to what I saw. If that is not the initial event, then I suspect what I saw was a lense flair artifact.

        I’m sure by now, the other camera footage has been reviewed, and the engineers should be getting a good briefing on what the initial events actually were. We should know quite a bit later today.

  7. So I read the 1st stage is a Ukrainian design because they didn’t have enough experience with liquid vs. solid fuel and now they are going to start (after four launches) to inspect the engines pre-flight?

    Three various 2nd stages (of 5 configurations) are solid fuel? The third stage will still be untested on their next flight?

    Obviously it’s doable, but does not inspire confidence The good news is that boat is safer since a third factor must be multiplied in.

  9. Well, at least I know why I couldn’t see it in the sky from Richmond. Ran outside Just as the TV news showed it lighing off, but never saw anything; figured it was the clouds in the east. Guess I was wrong. Too bad. 🙁

  10. Well that sucks. I wouldn’the be surprised if some knives are being sharpened this very evening to go after private space.

    1. “I would like to say to my colleagues and fellow committee members that this just shows that the US should rely on only one private firm for ISS access, so NASA can concentrate on doing things right. Fortunately I happen to have such a go-to firm in my own district.”

      1. Yes, this one event defines the entire space program. The children aren’t safe because they didn’t have a tree to hug. …or was this Tim the tool-man having a weenie roast? Reminds me of the early days. …or Jodie Foster and the first wormhole machine.

        I imagine they’ll get beyond this. Quite spectacular secondary explosions. It would have been interesting to experience the shock wave as those that did in both vids. Elon got his three out of the way early with a smaller rocket. I hope he doesn’t say something smart-ass about this.

  12. Another corrosion issue like the ones SpaceX had in the same pad? The flight was delayed and I think Baikonur, where the N1 pad was located, was kinda low on salt water.

    1. Or maybe the Ukrainians manufacturing the first stage had some issues. Not unexpected when the country is in a “civil” war.

    2. The same pad? SpaceX has never launched from that pad.

      My condolences to Orbital. They should be able to recover from this, and there will be plenty of data to track down a root cause.

  13. I don’t think Orbital has much to be sad about, as it didn’t look a bit worse than the launch of any key Obama initiative.

  14. Comparing Orbital’s launch to the launch of an Obama initiative is just low. At least Orbital got a few hundred feet up before crashing and burning.

  15. A curious thing, looking at the video here… Is it just me, or does the rocket seem to hesitate, almost stall, at about 10 sec into the video? Is that usual? Is it a trick of the light?

    1. I think what you see is nominal. Here is a previous successful day launch for comparison. What I see from liftoff until t+2 seems to be a less than full power launch with an RCS fire (near the top of the first stage) which causes the stack to tip away from the tower, then RCS and steering bring the vehicle back into a vertical launch with engine coming up to full power.

      I saw the RCS puff in the failed launch. I hadn’t seen something like that previously, as certainly shuttle didn’t burn RCS near the tower, but it was obvious an RCS port. The day launch is much clearer that it fires to tilt away from tower. I wonder if that is a Russian/Ukraine tolerance issue, because the stack seems like it will have no problem missing the tower.

      By the way, this event and the Wayne Hale story a few days ago reminded me about this video.

      1. I saw the RCS puff in the failed launch. I hadn’t seen something like that previously, as certainly shuttle didn’t burn RCS near the tower, but it was obvious an RCS port.

        No, it was obviously NOT that. The Antares first stage has no RCS. What you are seeing looks like vented gases from the LOX vent port.

        1. Not that I disagree that the first stage has no RCS, but how is it obvious? Is there some sign flashing on the screen that I’m missing?

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