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Space station supply rocket blows up on takeoff

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Orbital Sciences Corp.s unmanned rocket blows up over the launch complex at Wallops Island, Va., just six seconds after liftoff Tuesday. No injuries were reported. (AP Photo/NASA TV)

ATLANTIC, Va. An unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site in Virginia. No injuries were reported following the first catastrophic launch in NASAs commercial spaceflight effort.

The accident was sure to draw criticism over the space agencys growing reliance on private U.S. companies in this post-shuttle era. NASA is paying billions of dollars to Orbital Sciences and the SpaceX company to make station deliveries, and its counting on SpaceX and Boeing to start flying U.S. astronauts to the orbiting lab as early as 2017. This was the fourth flight by Orbital Sciences to the orbiting lab.

The Orbital Sciences Antares rocket blew up over the beachside launch complex at Wallops Island. The company said everyone at the site had been accounted for, and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities. And nothing on the lost flight was urgently needed by the six people living on the 260-mile-high space station, officials said.

Flames could be seen shooting into the sky as the sun set.

Orbital Sciences executive vice president Frank Culbertson said things began to go wrong 10 to 12 seconds into the flight and it was all over in 20 seconds when what was left of the rocket came crashing down. He said he believes the range-safety staff sent a destruct signal before it hit the ground.

Bill Wrobel, director of NASAs Wallops Flight Facility, said crews were letting the fires burn out late Tuesday and set up a perimeter to contain them in the darkness.

This was the second launch attempt for the mission. Monday evenings try was thwarted by a stray sailboat in the rockets danger zone. The restrictions are in case of just such an accident that occurred Tuesday.

Culbertson said the top priority will be repairing the launch pad as quickly and safely as possible.

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Space station supply rocket blows up on takeoff

Space Station Supply Rocket Explodes on Launch

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An unmanned space station supply rocket exploded into a fireball seconds after launch from Wallops Island, Virginia Tuesday. No injuries were reported.

Orbital Sciences Corp. said in a Tweet shortly after the 6:22 p.m. ET explosion that there had been "a vehicle anomaly."

"This shows how difficult and maddening this business really is," Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, said in a news conference.

It was not immediately clear what went wrong with the launch. Officials said they will begin investigating the cause at daybreak. The rocket started going awry six seconds into flight and the range safety officer sent a self-destruct command 14 seconds after that.

NASA

PHOTO: The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, is seen in this Oct. 28, 2014 still from NASA.

This launch was the third of eight International Space Station cargo resupply missions under NASA's $1.9 billion contract with Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia. Orbital provides the launch vehicle and cargo spacecraft and NASA runs the range operations. The rocket and payload were worth $200 million and it's not known how much damage was done to the launch facility, officials said.

The Antares rocket was carrying 4,483 pounds of equipment to the station including 1,360 pounds of food. The rocket held a Cyngus cargo logistics spacecraft that was to have orbited above the Earth and was set to dock with the ISS on Nov. 2. Orbital Sciences had said this was the first use of its upgraded Castor 30XL second stage motor, which enables greater lift capacity.

NASA

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Space Station Supply Rocket Explodes on Launch

Russians launch cargo ship to space station

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Russian Progress supply ship loaded with nearly 5,800 pounds of supplies and equipment needed aboard International Space Station takes off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday, just nine hours after a U.S. cargo ship was destroyed in a launch mishap NASA TV

Nine hours after a spectacular launch failure that destroyed a U.S. supply ship bound for the International Space Station, the Russians successfully launched a Progress cargo craft from snowy Kazakhstan Wednesday carrying 5,793 pounds of rocket fuel, water, air, crew supplies and other equipment needed aboard the lab complex.

The Progress M-25M/57P spacecraft, mounted atop an upgraded Soyuz-2.1a rocket making its first flight, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:09:43 a.m. EDT (1:09 p.m. local time) and quickly climbed away through a cloudless blue sky on an easterly trajectory setting up a six-hour, four-orbit rendezvous with the space station.

The Soyuz booster, taking off from the same pad used by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin at the dawn of the space age, featured a new digital flight computer and followed a slightly different trajectory, according to RussianSpaceWeb.com, enabling the Progress cargo ship to carry about 660 pounds of additional cargo compared to earlier versions of the rocket.

The ascent appeared to go smoothly and roughly nine minutes after liftoff, the Progress was released to fly on its own. A few moments after that, its two solar panels and navigation antennas deployed as planned.

"We have a healthy cargo ship en route to the International Space Station," said NASA launch commentator Rob Navias.

If all goes well, the spacecraft will rendezvous with the International Space Station, gliding to a docking at the Pirs module around 9:09 a.m.

"The crew feels wonderful, and we're ready for the timelined activities," Expedition 41 commander Maxim Suraev radioed flight controllers in Moscow during a morning planning conference. "So, how's that Progress doing?"

"Good morning, everybody, this is Moscow," a flight controller replied. "The Progess is doing splendid. ... All the systems are preforming nominal, the antennas are deployed, and so all we've got to do is wait, because it's coming your way today."

"That's a good thing," Suraev said.

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Russians launch cargo ship to space station

UFO Incident as SpaceX’s Dragon CRS 4 Departs ISS for Re-Entry back to Earth – Video

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UFO Incident as SpaceX #39;s Dragon CRS 4 Departs ISS for Re-Entry back to Earth
SpaceX #39;s CRS-4 Dragon Spacecraft which has spent just over a month at the International Space Station was removed in what is called #39;unberthing #39; from it #39;s docking port by the Robotic Arm stationed...

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UFO Incident as SpaceX's Dragon CRS 4 Departs ISS for Re-Entry back to Earth - Video

Space station dodging junk from old satellite

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By Marcia Dunn The Associated Press October 27, 2014

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

The International Space Station sidestepped a piece of treacherous junk Monday just hours before the planned launch of a supply ship from Virginia.

NASA said debris from an old, wrecked Russian satellite would have come dangerously close to the orbiting lab just two-tenths of a mile if not for the move.

The space station was maneuvered well out of harm's way to keep the outpost and its six inhabitants safe.

Mission Control was informed of the space junk over the weekend. It is wreckage from a Kosmos satellite that was launched in 1993 and collided with an Iridium spacecraft in 2009.

Mission Control said the space station's relocation would not affect Monday evening's scheduled launch of a commercial supply ship.

Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned Cygnus capsule holds 5,000 pounds of cargo for NASA, including 32 mini research satellites, a meteor tracker, and a tank of high-pressure nitrogen to replenish a vestibule used by spacewalking astronauts. Liftoff was scheduled for 6:45 p.m. from Wallops Island, Virginia.

The launch, coming a half-hour after sunset, should be visible along much of the Eastern Seaboard, from South Carolina to Connecticut and Massachusetts. As an added bonus, the space station was to pass overhead five minutes later, resembling a fast-moving star.

Traffic is heavy these days 260 miles up.

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Space station dodging junk from old satellite

International Space Station Takes Evasive Action to Avoid Collision with Russian Junk

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More than 500,000 pieces of space junk are tracked every day by NASA(Wikipedia)

Debris from a spent Russian satellite came close to the orbiting satellite which was then manoeuvred out of harm's way, said NASA.

The space junk came within a fifth of a mile (320 metres) of the orbital laboratory and its six inhabitants.

Mission Control said the space station's relocation would not affect the scheduled launch of a commercial supply ship from Virginia. Its unmanned Cygnus capsule will carry some 1,500lb (680kg) of materials for space experiments.

The research includes how to stop headachesin space, measuring the rate of pea-shoot growth and how milk spoils in micro-gravity.

The Russian wreckage is from a Kosmos satellite that was launched in 1993 and collided with an Iridium spacecraft in 2009, according to an AP report.

"Given all the traffic that's coming and going... we might want to send up some of those red and green wands they use on the deck of an aircraft carrier," said Orbital Sciences' executive vice president Frank Culbertson, a former astronaut who lived on the space station over ten years ago.

Space junkis an increasing danger to astronauts on the space station, as well as to other satellites. There are about 6,000 tons of space junk orbiting Earth of all shapes and sizes from small metal bolts to dead satellites.

More than 500,000 pieces of space junk are tracked every day by NASA and the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network in order to avoid collisions in orbit.

In 2012, the international space station fired its thrusters to avoid debris from a 2009 satellite crash between an U.S. and Russian spacecraft.

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International Space Station Takes Evasive Action to Avoid Collision with Russian Junk

SpaceX Falcon cargo ship blasts off to International Space Station – Video

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SpaceX Falcon cargo ship blasts off to International Space Station
SpaceX has launched cargo ship Falcon 9 v1.1 into orbit on Sunday in the second Dragon mission of 2014 to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). The mission, supposed to be carried...

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SpaceX Falcon cargo ship blasts off to International Space Station - Video

[Antares] Cygnus CRS-3 Spacecraft Encapsulated in Payload Fairing Ahead of Launch – Video

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[Antares] Cygnus CRS-3 Spacecraft Encapsulated in Payload Fairing Ahead of Launch
The next Cygnus Spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, CRS-3, was encapsulated into it #39;s payload fairing on October 23rd having already been attached to the Antares second stage...

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[Antares] Cygnus CRS-3 Spacecraft Encapsulated in Payload Fairing Ahead of Launch - Video

SpaceX cargo ship returns to Earth after station visit

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A view of the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship moments after its release from the International Space Station's robot arm Saturday.The spacecraft, loaded with 3,276 pounds of equipment and experiment samples, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California five-and-a-half hours later. Alexander Gerst/NASA

A commercial cargo ship loaded with some 3,276 pounds of equipment and experiment samples, believed to include mice that were on board as part of a muscle atrophy study, returned to Earth Saturday to close out a five-week visit to the International Space Station.

Astronaut Reid Wiseman, operating the station's robot arm, detached the solar-powered Dragon spacecraft from the forward Harmony module around 8 a.m. EDT (GMT-4), maneuvered it into position and released it to open space at 9:57 a.m.

SpaceX flight controllers at the company's Hawthorne, Calif., plant then uplinked commands to fire the spacecraft's braking rockets at 2:43 p.m., putting the capsule on course for a fiery plunge back into the atmosphere.

The Dragon's re-entry systems apparently worked normally, parachutes deployed and the cargo ship splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 265 miles west of Baja California at 3:38 p.m.

Recovery crews standing by aboard a ship in the landing zone planned to haul the spacecraft back to Long Beach, Calif., where time-critical research samples will be offloaded and turned over to NASA.

The capsule then will be shipped to SpaceX's McGregor, Texas, facility where the rest of the cargo, including computer gear, spacewalk equipment and other hardware, will be removed.

This was SpaceX's fourth station resupply flight under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA that calls for 12 missions to deliver some 44,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.

The Dragon departure sets the stage for the undocking of a Russian Progress cargo ship from the Pirs module at 1:39 a.m. Monday. Unlike the Dragon capsule -- the only station resupply craft capable of carrying cargo back to Earth -- the Progress will burn up in the atmosphere later in the day.

Orbital Sciences plans to follow the Progress and Dragon departures with launch of a commercial Cygnus cargo craft from Wallops Island, Va., on Monday at 6:45 p.m. Making the company's third operational resupply flight, the Cygnus is expected to be captured by the station's robot arm and berthed at the Harmony port just vacated by the Dragon spacecraft on Sunday, Nov. 2.

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SpaceX cargo ship returns to Earth after station visit

SpaceX Dragon Comes Home After Mouse Delivery

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A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship ended a monthlong stay at the International Space Station on Saturday and made a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore used the stations robotic crane to release the capsule, built and operated by California-based SpaceX, as the two vehicles soared 260 miles (418 kilometers) over Australia.

"Dragon is free," mission commentator Rob Navias said during a NASA broadcast.

Several hours later, the gumdrop-shaped Dragon made a parachute descent into the Pacific Ocean, about 300 miles (500 kilometers) west of Mexico's Baja California. "Splashdown is confirmed!" SpaceX tweeted.

The capsule carried about 3,800 pounds (1,724 kilograms) of science experiments and equipment no longer needed aboard the station. It blasted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sept. 21 with more than 5,000 pounds (2,268 kilograms) of food, supplies, experiments and equipment including a prototype 3-D printer and 20 live mice that are being used in medical experiments to assess bone and muscle loss during long-duration spaceflights.

Dragon also delivered a $26 million NASA science instrument called RapidScat that was attached to the outside of the station to measure wind speeds over the oceans.

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. resupply the space station under the terms of commercial contracts totaling $3.5 billion. Orbital is due to launch a Cygnus freighter toward the station on Monday.

First published October 25 2014, 9:54 AM

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SpaceX Dragon Comes Home After Mouse Delivery


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