Updates Orbital Sciences' Cygnus CRS Flight 1 through Flight 8 updates.

[Kyle]

Little OT: The US media coverage (especially CNN) is absolutely dreadful of this. CNN is carrying the story as "rocket with classified equipment explodes." So p*ssed that I had to turn off the television.

 

[N_Molson]

As for the explosion, I find it ironic that this rocket, which used engines which were essentially clones of Soviet N1 engines, failed in a similar manner as the N1-5L disaster.

Now running 30 of those engines at the same time in 1970 is one thing, running 2 of them in 2014 is another...

 

[Astro SG Wise]

Either way, with the classified equipment, the lead engineer wanted the place secured for the purpose of security of classified information as well as the preservation of investigation information. It doesn't matter, but I still thought it was interesting.

 

[Donamy]

Little OT: The US media coverage (especially CNN) is absolutely dreadful of this. CNN is carrying the story as "rocket with classified equipment explodes." So p*ssed that I had to turn off the television.

Sad isn't it ?

 

[DaveS]

1. I don't know.
2. Whether or not NASA does, it has already been posted to YouTube.
3. I did not know that... maybe a classified mission a la early Space Shuttle DoD missions?

As for the explosion, I find it ironic that this rocket, which used engines which were essentially clones of Soviet N1 engines, failed in a similar manner as the N1-5L disaster.

The classified items were specified as cryptographic in nature meaning something like GPS or COMSEC hardware. GPS despite its wide-spread usage in the civilian sector, is a military project run by the USAF.

 

[Astro SG Wise]

Part of me is happy that NASA hasn't selected orbital sciences for astronaut launches. Do SpaceX and Boeing have better quality spacecraft and launchers? We don't want any of our astronauts to suffer the same fate as Cygnus.

 

[Donamy]

Accidents happen!

 

[Astro SG Wise]

The classified items were specified as cryptographic in nature meaning something like GPS or COMSEC hardware. GPS despite its wide-spread usage in the civilian sector, is a military project run by the USAF.

Yes! That is the word! Cryptographic. Thanks. :tiphat:

 

[DaveS]

Part of me is happy that NASA hasn't selected orbital sciences for astronaut launches. Do SpaceX and Boeing have better quality spacecraft and launchers? We don't want any of our astronauts to suffer the same fate as Cygnus.

Every launch vehicle will eventually suffer something like this. It has nothing to do with the contractor.

 

[N_Molson]

We don't want any of our astronauts to suffer the same fate as Cygnus.

No, but there was time for a LES to fire, and even to be manually trigerred if it failed to detect the failure.

 

[boogabooga]

Orbital is not building a good track record with NASA. This is the third failed NASA mission in about 5 years, including two Taurus failures.

 

[Donamy]

Every launch vehicle will eventually suffer something like this. It has nothing to do with the contractor.

I wouldn't go that far. Remember Morton Thyocol knew about the O rings.

 

[GLS]

So, my uninformed analysis :tiphat::
1) there's a vent valve that is pulsing just after liftoff... tank overpressurization? (could be nominal)
2) exhaust changes color and brights a lot just before the "BUM". Seems to indicate a change in mixture ratio to the LOX side, hotter combustion, metal melts....

Not sure how/if these 2 observations relate to each other.

 

[Urwumpe]

Looks like a combustion chamber or turbopump catastrophic failure...

I agree, the initial small explosion looks much like a turbopump/turbine failure, but could also be a detached high pressure fuel pipe.

 

[DaveS]

I wouldn't go that far. Remember Morton Thyocol knew about the O rings.

They did try to stop it but got bullied into GO recommendation by two NASA centers, MSFC and KSC. In fact, MSFC knew about the fallibility of the seals back in 1983 but it got buried and the criticality rating changed from CRIT 1 to CRIT 1R meaning it had redundancy.

 

[N_Molson]

1) there's a vent valve that is pulsing just after liftoff... tank overpressurization? (could be nominal)

Not a tank failure, the explosion definitively comes from 1 of the engines.

 

[GigaG]

Now running 30 of those engines at the same time in 1970 is one thing, running 2 of them in 2014 is another...

Yes, but it is still ironic. Not to say that they were related, but the incidents are eerily similar - this is likely a simple creepy coincidence, considering that, as you said, the rockets, technology, and background are completely different-

N1-5L: Rocket lifts off, engine explodes, control system shuts down all but one engine, rocket falls back and destroys launchpad.

Cygnus Orb-3: Rocket lifts off, something explodes near bottom of rocket, rocket falls back and seems to have caused severe damage to the launch pad.

 

[Astro SG Wise]

CNN didn't seem to nosy, Kyle. This video said nothing about 'classified information' at all.

 

[Donamy]

They did try to stop it but got bullied into GO recommendation by two NASA centers, MSFC and KSC. In fact, MSFC knew about the fallibility of the seals back in 1983 but it got buried and the criticality rating changed from CRIT 1 to CRIT 1R meaning it had redundancy.

Only a few tried.

 

[Alfastar]

Everything did looking good for this Antares launch, it did lifting off the pad normally like all other Antares launches.

Until suddenly something blow up and then falling the Antares back on the ground in fire, and then exploded of the impact.

If I look good the reply video's on Youtube, you see that the explosion started under, causing the Antares lost (nessesaly) trust and fails on the ground almost directly.

Did likely those AJ-26-58 engines blown up again? (Just a suggestion, there is no official cause yet)