It’s been one year since the launch failure.
Three days later, SpaceShipTwo would be lost, killing its co-pilot. It was a rough week for commercial spaceflight.
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It’s been one year since the launch failure.
Three days later, SpaceShipTwo would be lost, killing its co-pilot. It was a rough week for commercial spaceflight.
Comments are closed.
NASA, Orbital Differ on Root Cause of Antares Launch Failure:
An executive summary of a NASA Independent Review Team (IRT) report into the October 2014 loss of an Antares shortly after liftoff, released by NASA Oct. 29, concluded there was an explosion in the liquid oxygen turbopump in one of the two AJ-26 engines, designated E15, in the vehicle’s first stage about 15 seconds after ignition. The vehicle lost thrust and crashed to the ground near its launch pad. The explosion was triggered when rotating and stationary components in part of the turbopump came into contact. “This frictional rubbing led to ignition and fire” in the turbopump, and thus the explosion, the report states.
The report, though, could not determine what cased the turbopump problem in the first place. “The IRT was not able to isolate a single technical root cause for the E15 fire and explosion,” the report states. Instead, investigators identified three potential root causes, “any one or a combination of which could have resulted in the E15 failure.”