[AR] Re: Antares Lost On Liftoff
- From: "Stephen Burns" <stephen.burns@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 20:04:34 +0800
No one got hurt, Orbital Sciences for the win!
Cheers,
Burnsie
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jonathan Goff
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 8:33 AM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: Antares Lost On Liftoff
Henry,
Ben Brockert and George Herbert noticed that the drop rate after the explosion
was less than 1G, so only one of the two engines may have failed. Ben also
suggested that being a single-shaft turbopump, it could've been either a nozzle
leak or some problem with the LOX turbine or injectors. Hopefully I'm
remembering that right.
Sad day for Orbital.
~Jon
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 6:23 PM, Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I've only just seen the video, but it looks like today's Antares launch had an
engine failure a few seconds after liftoff, fell back on the pad, and exploded.
Pending more data, it looks like the big questions going forward will be the
NK-33/AJ-26 engines, and pad damage.
Video at
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/nasa-rocket-explodes-shortly-after-launch/29392528
Several seconds after liftoff, the exhaust plume seems to double in
width/brightness for a good part of a second, flickers, then there's an
explosion around the aft end of the rocket, no further engine plume, and the
vehicle falls back onto the pad area with about the results you'd expect.
(Nobody hurt, according to initial reports.)
Massively sparse data for now, of course, but it looks like the initial failure
may, repeat may, have been a massive fuel leak - a split nozzle? - with that
engine exploding part of a second later, presumably taking out the second
engine in the process.
Henry V
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