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Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes after liftoff

nasa.gov

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Re: Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes after liftoff

#13

Post by foobarqux »

blhack wrote: post #9

I had a close friend who worked on this. Everybody in our lab stopped working this afternoon to watch it launch, and to cheer our friend on. Definitely went from "YAY!" to sad really quick. It's been said other places in this thread, but to echo it again: I really feel for all the engineers involved in this. That's got to be devastating. To everybody: failures suck, but big spectacular failure is directly correlated…

> Don't fret the failures.

Except when it kills people (though this accident didn't).

Re: Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes after liftoff

#14

Post by pdabbadabba »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #10
jwise0 wrote: post #3

There aren't many blogs covering this right now, but there are no personnel injured (according to the launch loop) -- just "significant property damage and significant vehicle damage". Nobody has said much yet: https://twitter.com/OrbitalSciences/status/52722568241456742...

>> "significant property damage and significant vehicle damage" This wasn't launched in a desert/uninhabited area? Edit: Thanks for clarifying below.

I imagine that the "property" that was damaged is to the launch facility itself. The launch was on Wallops Island, VA which is largely (if not entirely) uninhabited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallops_Island

Re: Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes after liftoff

#18

Post by daeken »

KhalilK wrote: post #11

Will the logs suffice to determine the cause of the explosion or will they have to reassemble the wreckage and look for anomalies?

Probably way too early to tell even that. There will be hundreds of possible causes that will have to be narrowed down; no one will know anything concrete for a good while most likely, even inside Orbital Sciences.

Re: Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes after liftoff

#20

Post by blhack »

foobarqux wrote: post #13
blhack wrote: post #9

I had a close friend who worked on this. Everybody in our lab stopped working this afternoon to watch it launch, and to cheer our friend on. Definitely went from "YAY!" to sad really quick. It's been said other places in this thread, but to echo it again: I really feel for all the engineers involved in this. That's got to be devastating. To everybody: failures suck, but big spectacular failure is directly correlated…

> Don't fret the failures. Except when it kills people (though this accident didn't).

Fair point. Although I'd say: fret the suffering of people, not the fact that something really difficult ended up being difficult.
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