Business, Space

Antares

8 Comments

Well, they had a nominal liftoff through first-stage separation. And they just separated the fairing (which has been a problem for OSC recently). Stage two has ignited.

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, it’s in orbit. Looks like everything went by the book. Congratulations to the OSC team.

8 thoughts on “Antares”

  1. Good work! They need to take some PR tips from SpaceX or NASA though, having a guy repeating an “X is nominal” mantra throughout the launch isn’t very interesting, best to just have someone who’s telling us things like altitude, speed, staging, max-q, etc.

    1. I dunno, the SpaceX COTS-1 launch was pretty “nominal” too, to hear them tell it.

      SpaceX Falcon 9 Flight 2 Launch Webcast

      I guess I’d have to go through both videos and count all the “nominals” to declare a winner.

      But anyway, congratulations to Orbital! It was nice to see it go off so smoothly.

  2. You have to hand it to Orbital. Not a lot of companies could manage to integrate so many disparate components so smoothly and successfully as they just did. Soviet engines from the 1970s refurbished by Aerojet with a main stage made in the Ukraine and solid rocket upper stage by ATK. Others have tried less challenging integration efforts (e.g. South Korea’s Naro) with less success.

    I think this is the first successful flight for a rocket with NK-33 engines.

    1. I suppose I’m not the first person to ask this, but: what happens when they run out of refurbished NK-33s? Is there a capacity to manufacture more?

  3. Very nice launch. Glad to see multiple players in the COTS game.

    I hadn’t known to much about the Antares or the NK-33 engines. I looked it up on Wikipedia and the engine has a very fascinating history behind it. I wonder if there are some very old ex-Soviet rocket designers with big smiles on their faces today.

    1. I heard last week that some of the engineers who worked on those engines were in Virginia to watch the flight. That’s cool.

      Good job, Orbital. Keep up the good work.

  4. Congratulations to OSC. It is indeed great to have multiple suppliers, which may mean competition, invisible hand, etc.
    Go Antares!

Comments are closed.