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Miragedriver said:

The Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, sits on launch pad at Nasa's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The Antares will launch with the Cygnus spacecraft filled with over 5,000lbs of supplies for the International Space Station, including science experiments, experiment hardware, spare parts and crew provisions.
Picture: Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images



I will now get back to bottling my Malbec

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NASA Begins Antares Loss Investigation

AWIN First
Guy Norris
Tue, 2014-10-28 19:37
LOS ANGELES - NASA has secured the area around the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to begin its investigation into why an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket blew up just seconds after liftoff on its way to deliver a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).

The vehicle, which is powered at launch by two refurbished AJ-26 rocket engines, suffered a “catastrophic anomaly shortly after lift-off,” the agency says. The mission was to have been the third Orbital resupply flight to the ISS. It carried 5,000 lb. of NASA cargo, and had been delayed from a previous attempt on Oct. 27 because of a boat straying into the range safety zone southwest of the launch pad.

Investigations are expected to focus initially on potential failure mechanisms involving the AJ-26, a liquid oxygen/kerosene-powered engine originally developed for the Russian space program as the NK-33. An AJ-26 slated to power an Antares on a mission to the ISS in 2015 experienced a failure during a hot-fire test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on May 22.

The failure occurred around 10 sec. after liftoff at 6:22 pm. EDT, resulting in an explosion very close to the launch facility itself. Images of the site show burning debris littering the pad area and the adjacent beach on the Atlantic coast. NASA says the range confirms launch officials are “working to secure the area and data from their consoles to use in the coming investigations. All personnel are accounted for and there have been no injuries.”



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Just hours after an American cargo run to the International Space Station ended in flames, a Russian supply ship has arrived at the station with a load of fresh supplies.
The Russian supply ship launched early Wednesday from Kazakhstan and arrived at the orbiting lab six hours later with 3 tons of food, fuel and other items. The smooth flight was in stark contrast to Tuesday evening's explosion of a commercially provided cargo ship.
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned Antares rocket had just lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia, when it exploded. The rocket was carrying a Cygnus capsule loaded with 2½ tons of station experiments and equipment for NASA. Ground teams were finally getting access Wednesday morning to the damaged pad and fire-stricken area. No one was injured.

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MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — A witness says Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo exploded during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert.

Photographer Ken Brown says the space tourism craft was released from the plane that carries it to high altitude, ignited its rocket motor and then exploded.

Brown says there is wreckage in the desert north of Mojave Air and Space Port.

The California Highway Patrol says there is one fatality and one major injury.

SpaceShipTwo is typically flown by two pilots.

Virgin Galactic confirms the loss of the spaceship but has given no details.

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