
Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes after liftoff - politician
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
======
blhack
I had a close friend who worked on this. Everybody in our lab stopped working
this afternoon to watch it launch, and to cheer our friend on.

Definitely went from "YAY!" to sad really quick.

It's been said other places in this thread, but to echo it again: I really
feel for all the engineers involved in this. That's got to be devastating.

To everybody: failures suck, but big spectacular failure is directly
correlated to the difficulty of what you're trying to do. If you're failing,
you're doing something right.

Back when I used to mountain bike a lot, it was a personal "joke" that I
wasn't really riding unless I crashed at least once. That's how I knew I was
pushing myself to improve.

Don't fret the failures.

~~~
GrinningFool
"If you're failing, you're doing something right."

I didn't think people said this and meant it. If you succeed, it means you've
done the critical things right. If you're failing, it means that you didn't do
something right. Or several somethings.

Yeah, you can learn from it and do better, and that's great - but that doesn't
mean it's a success. It's a failure and - in some cases - a chance to do
better the next time.

Trying to portray it as a good thing because your goal was a hard one only
lessens the value you can receive from it.

~~~
solistice
As I've understood it, it means that the scale of your ambitions is right.

Consider a continuum of things that you can do, divided up by difficulty. For
some part of it, you allways succeed, for some part of it, it's a mix of
sucess and failure, and for some even more difficult part, you always fail.

Now in order to succeed at something consistently, you need to master it,
which also means that the things you always succeed at are fully mastered. Any
knowledge or skills to be gained in those areas are at best minuscule
improvements.

Then there's the part where you succeed sometimes and fail sometimes. But each
time you fail, you gain more data on how you failed, and you think about how
you can fix those points. You're learning, and you're improving.

Now there are also tasks at which you'll consistently fail. Passing the BAR
exam as a programmer with no preparation would be a good example. Since you
have no sucesses to compare to in that area, you wouldn't learn a lot trying
to retake the BAR exam, no matter how often you did it. You're lacking in
knowledge and skills required, and trying to perform at that level doesn't do
you any good.

Now the ratio of failures and sucesses is more of a rule of thumb, and not an
ironclad model. If you do turn it into an ironclad model, tell me, because I'd
love exact metrics to shoot for. The reason that the common adage is "If
you're failing, you're doing something right", at least so I believe, is that
"If you're failing some and succeeding some, you're closer to your optimum
failure/success ratio for growth than if you are at either end of the extreme"
simply doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely. You can't put that on the
cover of a self-help book. And since almost everyone is inclined to default to
the "sucess" side of the continuum (coloquially known as your comfort zone)
instead of the "failure" side (excluding select masochists), it makes a lot
more sense to tell someone to fail more often. It's not a curse, it's a call
for more ambitious projects. In this specific case, it's a comforting call to
the fact that they're trying hard enough to fail at something. And I think
that is commendable.

~~~
klodolph
I think the generalization is overbroad. Risk of failure should be weighed
against the consequences of failure.

If I'm writing code for robots as a hobby and my robots behave exactly as I
intended all of the time, then I'm probably not learning anything, and I
should try to make the robots do more sophisticated tasks. The consequences of
failure are minimal, so the optimum failure rate is high.

If I'm at work writing avionics code, the cost of failure is astronomical.
It's nice to push boundaries and learn things, but it's better to avoid plane
crashes. The consequences of failure are high, so the optimum failure rate is
low.

I think the problem with rocket science is really the tyranny of physics. All
the potential and kinetic energy you give to the rocket has to be stored in
chemical form on the launchpad. You have to sit right on the edge of
catastrophe or you are not going to make it into space at all. We've been
doing this for half a century and the safety record is, quite plainly, not
very good.

When we learn how to do spaceflight safely, we'll do that.

~~~
Gravityloss
That's also why research, prototyping and product development should often be
done in ways where failure is a lot cheaper and your optimum failure rate can
be much higher, accelerating progress hugely.

For example at a smaller pilot scale or in test benches.

Yet, if your test bench is very complicated, slow, costly and introduces
errors of its own, it might not be wise. Also some "flying" test
configurations can be a dead end.

So in the big "Battlestar galactica" NASA missions with lots of new
technology, the cost of failure is very high. That's why they analyze a lot
and test stuff in test benches. But those can be dead ends. It makes
everything even more costly, making failure even more expensive, requiring
more tests. Schedules slip while you have zero science return to show... It's
a vicious circle.

It might make more sense to just for example launch many smaller probes, each
one somewhat better than the previous one in some degrees. Some might crash,
but if your audience understands that, it's not a political disaster. You're
going to fly the next one again in two years. This way you also don't have to
wait 20 years for your technology development to pay off.

So SpaceX launched Falcon 1 quite many times, and learned a lot about
technology as well as matured as an organization. They crashed quite many
times as well. But those were not nearly as expensive as Falcon 9 crashes were
at this point.

That's also why they were flying different versions of Grasshopper and now
Falcon 9 R. Retire risk. Allow crashes - when you can afford them. This will
reduce crashes later when you can not allow them.

So it is a slightly complex issue but nothing very out of the ordinary.
Usually in the real world things settle into a good compromise between
conflicting goals.

~~~
lutorm
Actually, SpaceX only launched two successful F1s, flights 4 and 5, before
moving on the the development of the F9. And there was only one demonstration
flight of F9 before it flew with the first Dragon. So it's not exactly like
the test flights have been _that_ many.

------
SuperChihuahua
Video of the explosion:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHMmMgdcOSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHMmMgdcOSU)

...and I believe this is the water-tower you can see in the video:
[https://www.google.se/maps/place/NASA+Wallops+Flight+Facilit...](https://www.google.se/maps/place/NASA+Wallops+Flight+Facility/@37.8336778,-75.4877723,200m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x91e6a41a07f96c6e)

~~~
callesgg
I expected it to self desturct.

Why would it not do that? Was it to close to the ground?

~~~
trothamel
I don't think Antares can command itself to destruct. The destruct has to be
commanded by the range. There isn't any point to issuing the destruct command
unless the impact point is dangerously far from the flight path, and that
wasn't the case here.

~~~
dalke
I think it's reasonable to assume that Antares can command itself to destruct
given that other rockets have that ability, and have so destructed.

Ariane 5 (the infamous flight 501) self-destructed.

[http://sunnyday.mit.edu/accidents/Ariane5accidentreport.html](http://sunnyday.mit.edu/accidents/Ariane5accidentreport.html)

"The launcher started to disintegrate at about H0 + 39 seconds because of high
aerodynamic loads due to an angle of attack of more than 20 degrees that led
to separation of the boosters from the main stage, in turn triggering the
self-destruct system of the launcher"

A SpaceX rocket self-destructed:

[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188593-spacex-rocket-
self...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188593-spacex-rocket-self-
destructs-after-detecting-an-anomaly-reusable-space-launchers-are-tricky-
business)

"In a statement, SpaceX says the rocket detected an anomaly and automatically
initiated its self-destruct sequence."

The Titan IVA-20 explosion was also due to a self-destruct, and not the range
officer:

[http://fas.org/spp/military/program/launch/titan_iv-20_sum.h...](http://fas.org/spp/military/program/launch/titan_iv-20_sum.htm)

"At this point, the northern-most Solid Rocket Motor (SRM #1) separated from
the core booster, initiating the Inadvertent Separation Destruct System. At
45.529 seconds, approximately 3 seconds after the automatic destruct sequence,
Mission Flight Control Officers sent command destruct signals to the vehicle."

~~~
engi_nerd
Up until a few months ago, I was an engineer for OSC. We used the same Flight
Termination Logic Unit (FTLU) as Antares. I can confirm that it can provide
for automatic destruct should the engineers desire it. I have no knowledge of
the specifics of its use in Antares (I did not work on the Antares program),
but given the constraints of operating from Wallops, I would not be surprised
if automatic destruct is enabled for all Antares launches.

------
gedmark
Using 50 year old Russian engines was a risky move on Orbital's part, but in
fairness the NK-33's are a pretty amazing piece of technology. The US has
still yet to build anything matching its performance:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33)

297 seconds of Isp is huge. The Saturn V's F1 engine only had 263 seconds. And
the closest we've come since to that level of performance in a Lox/RP-1 engine
is the Merlin 1D which will have 282.

They did it by using an oxygen-rich, fully staged combustion cycle. Which
means that most of the fluid flowing around the engine and through the
turbines of the pumps is super hot pure oxygen at 2000 psi. That's crazy. The
US has brought over NK-33's and taken them apart and we still don't quite know
how the Russians got it to work.

Of course, performance is only one consideration. All the other things you'd
expect like integration costs, reliability of your suppliers, etc. made the
Antares a pretty risky bet. But given Orbital's choices of developing their
own engine from scratch, buying a hyper-expensive engine from Rocketdyne, or
buying a wonder of engineering for cheap from the Russians, buying a bunch of
surplus NK-33's wasn't totally crazy.

~~~
cromwellian
"The US has still yet to build anything matching its performance"

The Space Shuttle Main Engines had an Isp of 452s and 500,000 lb of thrust,
easily the most efficient rocket engines ever built.

~~~
swatkat
NK-33 is RP/LOX, whereas SSME is LH2/LOX. LH2/LOX cryogenic engines have
higher Isp compared to other solid and liquid engines.

ISRO's CE-7.5 LH2/LOX engine[1] has an Isp of 454s.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-7.5](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-7.5)

~~~
justin66
Was anything about cromwellian's statement inaccurate, such that it should
have been downvoted? I'm pretty sure I understand everything being discussed
here but I don't understand THAT.

~~~
marktangotango
I didn't down vote it, but the difference between RP1 and Liquid Hydrogen
engine performance is WELL known. Thus his assertion that SSME's are better,
although true as comparison of rocket engines in general, is false when
comparing LOX/RP1 engines specifically (since the SSME are NOT LOX/RP1), which
the grandparent was clearly doing.

Similarly, citing the 850 ISP of the experimental NERVA engines is equally out
of context.

~~~
cromwellian
I didn't see the LOX/RP1 qualifier when I replied (I was responding to the
quoted sentence).

Let me qualify the SSME claim as "highest Isp/Thrust of any widely used
engine". Prototypes or engines that haven't flown much IMHO aren't able to
make this claim.

The NK-33 may beat a Merlin 1D, but what much do they cost to make and what is
the reliability? If you make 100 NK-33s and 100 Merlin 1Ds, what's your total
budget, and how many NK-33s will fail compared to the Merlin 1D?

One thing I get with SpaceX, is that their engines are not designed to push
the performance envelope. They want them to be cheap and reliable.

------
trothamel
The first stage engines that exploded were AJ-26 engines. These are
remanufactured NK-33 or NK-43 engines built in the Soviet Union in the
late-60s or early-70s for the N-1 moon rocket, but never used.

In May, an AJ-26 exploded on the test stand at Stennis space center in
Mississippi, severely damaging the test stand.

~~~
pbreit
It seems so bizarre that we're using 40 year old, Russian-made engines. I'm
sure there are plenty of smart folks who will say not too worry, but I wonder.

~~~
Gravityloss
It is a fascinating case of uneven technological development.

The Soviet Union went so far with staged combustion engines in the sixties
that that level of technology has not yet been reached elsewhere.

USA, Europe and Japan went with hydrogen staged combustion but that's quite
different.

The ULA/Blue Origin decision about new indigenous US first stage engine
development gets a huge boost from this problem.

It's just what can be reached when you put resources into it. Coming from the
IT world it might seem strange that the investment has not lost its value, but
it has not. It might be quite a lot easier to duplicate nowadays, but not
child's play at all.

Sometimes it's chilling to think what kind of still secret projects were
funded by the huge US defense budgets during the cold war. There are some
public sides and declassified parts on things like very good glide ratio
hypersonic vehicles, but officially they never went far and the space shuttle
was the thing. (
[http://www.456fis.org/THE%20B-52/FS-011-DFRC_popup6.jpg](http://www.456fis.org/THE%20B-52/FS-011-DFRC_popup6.jpg)
)

~~~
pbreit
I'm sure the core rocket technology is sound but I've gotta think the sensors
and computational capabilities are literally decades out of date. Which is
really where SpaceX has a commanding advantage, for example, being able to
abort a launch at T-0 and reschedule for later that day having identified and
corrected an anomaly.

------
trothamel
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5eddt-
iAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5eddt-iAo) is a high-quality video.

------
zaroth
Right before the explosion you can hear launch control saying something like
"Got engines at 108%".

I was curious about it, but from Reddit discussion, apparently this is totally
normal; "Yes, the engines have been upgraded many times. To avoid having to
recalibrate the software each time engines are upgraded, they are simply rated
at over 100 percent thrust over the first engine's thrust."

Another interesting fact. The pad is NASA's. So you can imagine the crew that
maintained it are pretty disappointed.... "Look at what you did to my pad!?!"
The fireball was enormous. The view from the Cessna incredible.

That must have been just about a worst case scenario for the pad to sustain
such a direct hit. Hopefully it was the strict safety protocols and not just
dumb luck which kept everyone safe. That's another aspect of this event which
can be studied and reported, so at least we maximize the take-aways. Track the
entire response from T-6.

Apparently the rocket is designed to do that little lateral kick that you can
see in the video and initially seems odd. 'Why is the rocket not going
straight up' causes a little unease at first but apparently is nominal. If
that's the case, then the time of the explosion may correspond to a point
where they kick up engine output. It also may have been a heavier payload than
usual requiring higher engine output? (Unconfirmed)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Link to the Cessna view:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zarWT7H9t54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zarWT7H9t54)

------
biscotti
More discussion on spacex reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2km5vq/ot_orbitals_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2km5vq/ot_orbitals_antares_has_just_exploded_in_flight/)

~~~
djyaz1200
Reddit thread is interesting. Pulled this off there... wow
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl12dXYcUTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl12dXYcUTo)

~~~
justin66
Interesting in that case that the range officer didn't destroy the rocket, or
waited a really long time.

~~~
Zuph
In general, Russian rockets don't have the same range safety mechanisms that
American and European rockets do.

------
matthewwiese
My entire physics lab watched this happen live. It started going up and
everyone was cheering. Seconds later just caught fire, and fell to the ground
and exploded.

"That's what happens when you set 'a' to negative." a good lesson from my TA

~~~
sillysaurus3
What's 'a'?

~~~
wolf550e
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion)

------
codezero
This is a bummer, I hate to see stuff like this happen. The payload in this
rocket was the heaviest that has been included in an Antares launch, I doubt
this had anything to do with the failure, but hopefully we'll find out.

Rocket science is hard, after all.

In the video, there are several pieces of debris that fly off and spin in a
helical motion, I wonder what those bits are!

------
jwise0
There aren't many blogs covering this right now, but there are no personnel
injured (according to the launch loop) -- just "significant property damage
and significant vehicle damage".

Nobody has said much yet:
[https://twitter.com/OrbitalSciences/status/52722568241456742...](https://twitter.com/OrbitalSciences/status/527225682414567424)

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "significant property damage and significant vehicle damage"

This wasn't launched in a desert/uninhabited area?

Edit: Thanks for clarifying below.

~~~
whoopdedo
And to be clear, the debris field is over the Atlantic Ocean. The launch was
scheduled for last night but had to be scrubbed because a boater had entered
the restricted area.

~~~
Crito
The debris field would have been over the Atlantic, had the rocket made it
that far. However it failed while it was still over the launchpad, fell out of
the sky, and exploded when it fell onto the launchpad.

------
rl3
Yesterday's launch was scrubbed due to a boat violating the range safety
exclusion zone: [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/space-station-cargo-ship-
prepped...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/space-station-cargo-ship-prepped-for-
launch/)

------
Osmium
Very sad that this has happened. I can only imagine what it must feel like to
those who worked on the rocket and its payload. It can really happen to
anyone, even the best. At least we can all be thankful no one was hurt.

------
daeken
In addition to the COTS resupply provisions for the ISS, this craft was also
carrying the Arkyd-3 satellite (basically the whole Arkyd space telescope
minus the optics, to serve as a test platform). While this is always sad, no
lives were lost and that's what insurance is there for. Kudos to Orbital
Sciences for pushing the boundaries of space flight, even if these losses are
anything but fun.

------
TheBigSteve1
I happened upon this website as a result of a Google search re. yesterday's
failed launch of the Orbital Sciences venture to resupply the ISS, and this
URL appeared as the first search result. I've read your site guidelines, as
well as the many comments on this news page, and as a lay person I humbly
offer this question, which I hope someone will answer: Why was there no escape
rocket atop the rocket's payload module? Was it considered cost-prohibitive?
Thanks for your time. Cordially, Steve Logsdon. Post Script: I hope you won't
think it patronizing of me to observe that I found the apparent erudition and
literacy of the contributors to this web page to be most impressive.

~~~
narag
With no human lives involved, I guess the cost of the payload is insignificant
compared with the rocket, maybe even with the escape rocket.

------
rglover
Terrible situation, but the radio chatter on the live feed is a wonderful way
to learn about handling crises in a calm, collected manner. Impressive
considering what's going on.

~~~
joeblau
That was the most impressive part for me. It's like listening to Air Traffic
control--Some of the most professional conversation even in the face of
tragedy.

------
TerraHertz
In the videos you can see the quality of the rocket flame changes suddenly
about half a second before the obvious explosion in the engine area. The jet
becomes more orange and less convergent. At 1:03 in
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5eddt-
iAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5eddt-iAo)

So, as a general comment, something bad happened with the gear that pumps fuel
into the engines in the right proportion. Maybe involving a major leak of fuel
into the structures around the engine. Leaked fuel explodes. Complete loss of
thrust, rocket falls back to earth.

I wonder if the Russians would consider it a good or a bad thing for them, if
the West decides to stop using those Russian-built engines? Specifically, who
benefits if there's a series of failures of AJ-26 engines? Considering the
current imposition of economic sanctions against Russia, based on quite untrue
accusations related to Ukraine and MH17. The Russians are feeling considerably
put out over that, and rightly so.

~~~
avmich
> I wonder if the Russians would consider it a good or a bad thing for them,
> if the West decides to stop using those Russian-built engines?

Definitely bad. Of course, that depends on whom you ask :) and which Russian
we're talking about.

NK-33 is used on a recently created Soyuz-2.1v rocket (one engine on first
stage). There is no production of NK-33 today in Samara - but the ability to
sell engines to the West would oh so much improve economic situation for
Samara's industrial space cluster. Among other things, NK-33 is a matter of
pride in Samara. It's the only engine maker for first stages in Russia (if you
don't count Voronezh'es LH2 engines, used on the second stage of Energiya)
other than Energomash, its arch-rival. Since recently works are underway to
restart the production of NK-33... and Orbital going away from using them, for
whatever reason, is sad news.

Still NK-33 is a great piece of technology, in some aspects still unsurpassed.
It's too early to consider it's over for NK-33.

As for politics and sanctions against Russia - this is quite different
subject, almost completely unrelated. Leaders come and go... and people stop
wars at some point, yet the aspiration of going to the stars remains.

~~~
justin66
> As for politics and sanctions against Russia - this is quite different
> subject, almost completely unrelated.

Considering the funding for these missions comes from the U.S. Congress, the
matters seem pretty tightly coupled.

It was sure a topic of conversation when Elon Musk and Michael Gass (ULA CEO)
testified before congress:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_azyt1JhI0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_azyt1JhI0)

------
KhalilK
Will the logs suffice to determine the cause of the explosion or will they
have to reassemble the wreckage and look for anomalies?

~~~
daeken
Probably way too early to tell even that. There will be hundreds of possible
causes that will have to be narrowed down; no one will know anything concrete
for a good while most likely, even inside Orbital Sciences.

~~~
krisoft
You most probably meant inside Orbital Sciences Corporation. Antares is just
the rocket.

~~~
daeken
Argh, I do that every time. Quite right.

------
hnlurker
You will not go to space today.

~~~
sandstrom
This is a reference to an xkcd-post by Randall Munroe, a former NASA employee
and space proponent.

[http://xkcd.com/1133/](http://xkcd.com/1133/) [text at the bottom]

~~~
hudibras
Wow, I've somehow lived through 40 years of math/science/space-geekdom without
learning that the pointy thing on top of the Saturn V is a part of an escape
system.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system)

But don't worry, future-people-I-will-argue-with-on-the-Internet, I'm sure
that's the final gap in my knowledge base.

------
ChuckMcM
Ouch. A lot of rocket fuel burning all at once. I would be less concerned if
this was the first or second flight but as the fifth flight one has to wonder
what part of the process didn't work. This was apparently the first flight
with the Castor 30XL which is the second stage, I suppose if it started its
burn prematurely that would certainly be an issue.

As a testing problem, rockets have always fascinated me. At some level you
have to trust in first principles but being so thorough so that you know will
either fly or fail safe. That has got to keep folks up at night.

------
keehun
It seemed like from the press conference that Orbital will be footing most of
the bill. The best Frank from OS could say was that "some of the rocket" was
insured. Someone below cited $110 million minimum insurance, but that's not
even close to the number OS gave out in the conference at $200m for just the
rocket (which I think included neither the manifest nor the damage to the
pad/environment and any necessary repair/cleanup)

~~~
navila17
Just wanted to confirm that Orbital's mention of insurance does not help the
customers at all. It is up to the various companies to insure their own
payload.

Also, it might be fun to note that no one on that launch gets a refund.
Generally you pay for something like 90% before the launch (in different
milestones leading up to the launch) and only 10% after safe delivery to
orbit.

------
i_have_to_speak
Heartwarming to see how positive and forward-looking the responses here are.
Certainly more positive than the responses towards India's (successful) Mars
mission.

~~~
neindanke
What point are you trying to make?

------
nevergetenglish
To decide is this is a success or a failure one need to determine exactly
where was the error. If this new knowledge contributes to the design of better
systems then this is a success, if the actual error provides us with nothing
to learn then this is a very big failure. So there is an amortized cost of
success/failure in long term enterprises.

------
hueving
How do they root cause something like this when so much of the evidence is
blown to pieces?

~~~
gear54rus
Wondering the same thing. In addition to incidents like this, every once in a
while, a story pops up that describes how _programming error was the cause of
rocket crash_ that happened TWENTY years ago... How? Just how can people be
sure that it was programming error? It's not like you can debug a burnt piece
of a microcontroller, can you?

Guess we've come a long way from a magnifying glass investigations :)

~~~
aragot
I entered an engineering school 5 years after Ariane V.

Each single professor explained us why their subject was the reason for Ariane
V to explode. The physics one went about how the imperial/metric discrepancy
was the cause, the mechanics one went about how error margin management wad
the cause, the CS one about integer overflow... Each of them made it clear
that their course was the center of the world, but altogether it didn't look
smart.

I chose that the CS guy was right ;)

~~~
gear54rus
Seems like choosing between alternative timelines in some RPG :)

------
ars
Anyone know what the cargo was? Anything unique or expensive? Or just regular
supplies?

~~~
MichaelAO
According to Motherboard:

\- A pea growing experiment from students in Houston

\- A human health study investigating blood flow to and from the brain in
space

\- 19 student projects from New Jersey

\- A reentry breakup recorder

\- A meteor dust analyser

\- 1,360 pounds of food

\- Spacewalk equipment

\- Flight crew equipment

\- Fight procedures books

\- Computers

\- Classified "Crypto equipment"

Source:
[https://twitter.com/motherboard/status/527235620578787328/ph...](https://twitter.com/motherboard/status/527235620578787328/photo/1)

~~~
InclinedPlane
> \- A reentry breakup recorder

Right, there was to be a video recording of the Cygnus spacecraft as it
reentered and broke up (it's designed to disintegrate). Kind of ironic now.

~~~
Crito
I wonder if it could have survived the explosion. I suppose it would not have
been activated for launch though.

------
vermontdevil
Wonder if the boat didn't stray into the restricted area yesterday, things
would have been different?

I know we might never know but I did wonder if the draining and refueling the
fuel caused an anomaly somewhere and lead to this?

Such a big loss for us.

~~~
toufka
Or different in the other way - where had they launched with the boat there
and it still had exploded. Then ORB/NASA would have to deal with a lot more
than simply economic consequences.

~~~
seanflyon
I don't think the rocket made it that far.

------
blueboxjesse
A good reminder that no matter how bad your day goes at your job, things can
always be much, much worse. My thoughts go out to the the Orbital Sciences
team.

------
jakozaur
Launching to space is very prone to failures and (almost) everyone got one.

Though NASA seems to be paying for Orbital launches more than SpaceX (even
considering the difference in payload):
[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/153960-private-
spacefligh...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/153960-private-spaceflight-
heats-up-as-orbitals-antares-rocket-completes-test-launch)

------
Evolved
So on one hand it is possible and encouraged to fail out of sheer ambition yet
on the other hand it is possible to fail due to ignorance or laziness.

Therefore failure does not always occur when one is trying too hard because it
is also feasible to fail when not trying hard enough.

------
ericcumbee
They are securing the vehicle because it has sensitive crypto equipment on
board.

~~~
MichaelAO
I also heard that comment. Does anyone have insight into what 'crypto
equipment' might entail?

~~~
ericcumbee
I know the Shuttle carried DOD Secure comm equipment in addition to it's in
the clear UHF and VHF Radios. I'm assuming that ISS has something similar.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I know the Shuttle carried DOD Secure comm equipment in addition to it's in
> the clear UHF and VHF Radios. I'm assuming that ISS has something similar.

There's some obvious reasons why the _International_ Space Station might be
less likely to carry sensitive US military communications gear than the NASA
Space Shuttles.

~~~
ericcumbee
I don't think it is anything like that. It's for cases where they need to
discuss something that they don't want every person with a HAM radio to hear.
A discussion between an astronaut and the flight surgeon/spouse/clergy member.
I'm sure the Russians have a system on ISS as well. Just having the hardware
is not enough to crack into an enemies comms. It's more that they don't want
stuff like that falling into the hands of a rouge state like Iran or North
Korea, or a non-state actor that might have schemes of reverse engineering it
to build their own system. I'd bet there is a Russian Transceiver racked up in
JSC, and a DOD system racked up at Russian Space Control.

~~~
derekp7
I don't get why you would need secret hardware for that -- all the encryption
can happen in software, and there are plenty of public known encryption
algorithms that are secure. Maybe the need for secure storage of a private
key?

------
djyaz1200
So glad no one was hurt! I'm not a rocket scientist but it looks like fuel was
coming out the side of the rocked as it lifted off (kind of a puff) then it
got worse and ignited from the nozzle at the bottom.

~~~
Sanddancer
That looked a lot like normal venting. Here's what a daytime launch looked
like:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3L7crGudVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3L7crGudVU)
.

------
72deluxe
Very interesting that they used the engines from the Soviet moon rocket from
the 70s (?). The N-1 looked a great rocket, pity it never flew.

Even the massive arms for lifting the rocket into position are impressive for
the N-1.

------
stox
Looks like one of the engines blew up as they went to full throttle. Since
this was the first XL launch, I wonder if they are trying to push the AJ-26's
too hard with the increased payload.

------
alexvr
I was planning to watch it the night before, but it was cancelled because of a
sailboat or something nearby. How silly, I thought. It's not like it's going
to explode...

------
ericcumbee
They are waiting to hear from the FAA if the NTSB will be involved in the
investigation. Seems like something that would have been decided beforehand.

------
bd_at_rivenhill
Makes me really wish SpaceX were public; would make for interesting trading
tomorrow.

~~~
burkaman
This was an Orbital Sciences rocket, not SpaceX, which is publically traded.
Down 15.5% after hours so far:
[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AORB&ei=Gp5QVLiKLsm28...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AORB&ei=Gp5QVLiKLsm28gaDoIDQAg)

------
kilroy123
What a bummer... Getting to space isn't easy.

------
readerrrr
Spacex had an engine explosion during a flight, yet their primary mission was
successful. This is the benefit of modern rocket technology.

~~~
ceejayoz
That the SpaceX engine failure was non-catastrophic doesn't mean all failure
modes are like that. I'd imagine it's still possible for a SpaceX engine to go
ka-boom in certain situations. Modern tech or otherwise, they're still working
with what's in essence a large bomb.

------
TheBigSteve1
Why was the payload lost? Was it considered cost-prohibitive to have furnished
the payload with an escape rocket?

------
notjustanymike
Someone accidentally hit spacebar twice.

------
uptown
Truly unfortunate that it failed. Here's Elon Musk's comment about the Antares
rock two years ago:

Musk: The results are pretty crazy. One of our competitors, Orbital Sciences,
has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, and their rocket
honestly sounds like the punch line to a joke. It uses Russian rocket engines
that were made in the ’60s. I don’t mean their design is from the ’60s—I mean
they start with engines that were literally made in the ’60s and, like, packed
away in Siberia somewhere.

[http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-
qa/all/](http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/)

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
And he was wrong. They had 4 successful launches since then. Plus it seems
unprofessional to be bad mouthing a competitor like that in public.

~~~
joelrunyon
Here's his statement on twitter from today: "Sorry to hear about the
@OrbitalSciences launch. Hope they recover soon"

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/527247155954610176](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/527247155954610176)

Was he speaking facts? Because if they were using rockets made in the 60s -
he's not really badmouthing them as much as he is making public facts.

~~~
Lambdanaut
Comparing their rockets to "the punchline of a joke" is definitely bad
mouthing, just factual badmouthing.

Despite that, I don't blame him. Being factual is what's important.

~~~
avmich
And of course it's ridiculous that engines like NK-33 are considered bad just
because they sit in a hangar for some 40+ years :) . It's not milk, they
aren't that easily spoiled. Elon just used this time reference to make the
decision look good - for somebody who doesn't know better.

So factually he's right - but also misses the point. Here I should admit that
Elon says more than he does - but he does quite a bit too, so kudos to his
successes - Merlin-1D is a great engine.

~~~
justin66
> And of course it's ridiculous that engines like NK-33 are considered bad
> just because they sit in a hangar for some 40+ years

I took his comment to be more in the "that's your business model? buying and
selling old Russian hardware?" vein. It's not that the hardware is bad, per
se.

Although the hardware might be bad. I imagine they're looking into that...

