Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: GScholz on October 28, 2014, 06:36:24 PM
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http://www.iflscience.com/space/breaking-nasa-rocket-explodes-shortly-after-take
"Moments after lifting off at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the unmanned Antares rocket meant to bring cargo to the International Space Station exploded. "
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"Their Germans are better than our Germans! "
Seriously tho, glad no one was hurt. Sucks for the guys on the ISS
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They showed it repeatedly on CNN ( probably still are) looks like it got about 300 yards in the air mid-air explosion then Nasa hit the destruct button that explosion was huge.
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I saw the exlposions. It pretty freaking cool to watch, not going to lie. I didn't tape or take pictures or anything as I see this pretty frequently. But first time seeing the explosion. It was pretty breathtaking. Just hear a MASSIVE KABOOM. I didn't really "SEE" the initial explosion that caused the rocket to fall as the fire from the engines was already bright enough. But I sure heard it.
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That's what you get for using old Russian surplus engines...
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They've already determined it was the engine?
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Looked like it... However, my comment was mostly in jest.
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I'm not sure but I think the first stage is pretty much Russian designed and sourced, and it blew up just 6 seconds after liftoff, so...
I'm still a bit confused why anyone thought Russian sourced private enterprise launch hardware would be successful in the long term. Space launch is HARD, and its harder when you're buying your stuff surplus while having to trust that it'll all work the first time every time.
Regardless of anyone's opinion about NASA putting half its commercial space access eggs in a basket made up of surplus Russian rocket parts, this is a really expensive failure. There are already projects getting started to eliminate dependence on the Russian engines, but its going to increase the launch cost no matter how you add it up.
The disappointing bit of course is that some congresscritters will likely try to use this as an last-ditch crisis issue to save their re-election bids. I expect to see a handful of elected reps start hollering about spending taxpayer dollars on Russian stuff when we have alternatives that are fairly far along their development paths. Spacex and Boeing may end up getting a handful of extra dollars following a ton of pathetic fear-mongering and political posturing. Too bad, this is a national topic that deserves real debate.
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The Antares rocket is only one of three NASA will rely on in the future. SpaceX is already operating and Boeing's system will come on line shortly.
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This exact rocket already went up into space with the same engine (I'm pretty sure) back in 2012 i believe. So It's already had a succesful mission. They honestly don't know what failed (yet).
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I blame Sailboats. :furious
I was wondering if having to scrub Mondays' launch due to a Sailboat in the safety area caused the problem Tuesday.
I think they had to defuel the rocket and then refuel the next day. Not certain of this though. The rocket must go through some expanding while fueling and they have to cool it also. We'll find out after the investigation I suppose.
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Russian conventional rockets have had very good success rates afaik. At least compared to competition.
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This exact rocket already went up into space with the same engine (I'm pretty sure) back in 2012 i believe. So It's already had a succesful mission. They honestly don't know what failed (yet).
No, this version had a different engine, a larger engine, making it's first actual flight in this combination of primary and secondary stages. If watch it in slow motion it actually looks like the problem with the first stage happened just a few seconds after engine start.
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Well, from the video, it does look very much like the engine failed and lost thrust after a few seconds of operation.....and then the rocket just simply came back down again and detonated on impact.
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See Rule #4
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See Rule #4
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See Rule #4
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It has Russian engines... But what the heck. It's all German tech anyways. :aok
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See Rule #4
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Aerojet Rocketdyne: modernized a gimbal block for thrust vectoring capability, gimbaling feedlines, new wiring harnesses and electrical circuitry, electromechanical valve actuators and instrumentation.
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Damn you guys bite easy... :)
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That's what you get for using old Russian surplus engines...
What is Norway using in their space program ?
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What is Norway using in their space program ?
Lots of different motors and configurations. Mostly made by NAMMO Raufoss, but lots of European and American rockets too. We have great hopes for NAMMO's new North Star rocket for launching small satellites into polar orbits from Andøya Space Center.
(http://www.nifro.no/public/content/northStar.jpg)
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See Rule #4
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Why would we want to do that? :huh
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That's like launching 200 lbs of uselessness into orbit. Sure it was necessary 50 years ago when someone had to pull levers and turn knobs to make it go...