Launch News Orbital's Antares Maiden Flight & ORB-D "G. David Low" Cygnus Demo updates.

[Cosmic Penguin]

T-30 minutes - NASA TV started coverage.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

T-12 minutes. GO!

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

T-5 minutes!

 

[Urwumpe]

That launch did not look very smooth :lol:

 

[Sunhillow]

1st stage looked great, 2nd stage is burning :thumbup:

 

[Pioneer]

It's in orbit

 

[Codz]

Payload sep!

 

[kerlix]

That launch did not look very smooth :lol:

Possibly the worst pick of a camera for liftoff I've seen haha. It almost looks like it got shaken/blown loose or off its mount.


I found the gap between MECO and 2nd stage ignition pretty interesting. I guess I'm used to seeing burnout/sep/ignition in fairly quick succession.


I also was wondering if the slow counter-clockwise roll is intentional.

 

[Codz]

Congratulations to Orbital Sciences and NASA on a successful launch!

 

[John_L]

Congrats to the Orbital team, alot of hard work coming to fruition. A beer can shaped one way only craft isn't as sexy as a capsule that's all but human rated, like SpaceX, but for cargo delivery, it's looking like it'll be a good, safe way to keep the ISS crew supplied with cargo.

 

[Sunhillow]

Congratulations to Orbital for this most "nominal" flight.

My wife only heard the sound while I was watching - she asked "why does he always say nominal??". A good word in rocketry :lol:

 

[RGClark]

Congrats to Orbital Sciences and NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services(COTS) program!

Bob Clark

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

One word of note: The launch of Antares broke the 44+ years long NK-15/33 curse - and the prince and princess lived happily ever after. :rofl:

 

[orb]

Wait, the Antares is a slower climber than the Saturn V?

It didn't look and feel that much slow on the replays, as for example last Atlas V launches.

 

[RGClark]

Interesting the Orbital control room guys seem to be older than the SpaceX ones.

Bob Clark

 

[orb]

NASAtelevision:

 

[RGClark]

One word of note: The launch of Antares broke the 44+ years long NK-15/33 curse - and the prince and princess lived happily ever after. :rofl:

Good point. I think this is the first successful launch using NK-15/33 engines.

Bob Clark

 

[Pioneer]

Made a little snapshot while watching it live via nasa.gov:

The second stage firing its engines.

 

[orb]

OrbitalSci:

 

[jb860]

A true shame I didn't have enough time between work and the launch to try to see it on the horizon line. Did anyone get to see this even in person or on their horizon?