The aerial fireball that erupted from the Antares rocket seconds after blastoff could be seen for many miles. The pressure wave and heat wave from the explosion were
even felt at the press site nearly two miles away from the launch pad. Credit: Ken Kremer
into a hellish inferno and being completely consumed is
beyond blood curdling. It’s beyond absolutely chilling.
Now I know what hell is like on Earth.
Thank God no one was on board I keep thinking to this
day, replaying the disaster in my mind.
The Antares disaster will have many repercussions and
some ways of doing business in space may well need to
be radically altered.
Antares was carrying Orbital’s privately developed
Cygnus pressurized cargo freighter loaded with nearly
5000 pounds (2200 kg) of science experiments, research
instruments, crew provisions, spare parts, spacewalk and
computer equipment and gear on a critical resupply
mission dubbed Orb-3 bound for the International Space
Station (ISS).
It was the heaviest cargo load yet lofted by a Cygnus.
Some 800 pounds additional cargo was loaded on
board compared to earlier flights. That was enabled by
using the more powerful ATK CASTOR 30XL engine to
power the second stage for the first time.
The astronauts and cosmonauts depend on a regular
supply train from the ISS partners to kept it afloat and
productive on a 24/7 basis.
The Orbital-3, or Orb-3, mission was to be the third of
eight cargo resupply missions to the ISS through 2016
under the NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)
contract award valued at $1.9 Billion.
Orbital Sciences is under contract to deliver 20,000 kilograms of research experiments, crew provisions, spare
parts and hardware for the eight ISS flights.
In early December, Orbital Sciences said that the
company is seeking to quickly make up the cargo loss to
NASA by announcing the selection of the venerable
Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance to launch
Orbital’s next Cygnus cargo ship to the orbital science
lab.
Orbital and ULA signed a contract to launch at least
one and up to two Cygnus cargo missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial
Resupply Services (CRS) program.
The first Cygnus mission would liftoff sometime late in
the fourth quarter of 2015 aboard an Atlas V 401 vehicle
from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. I hope to be there to
witness it and look forward to reporting a more uplifting
story next time.
65
www.RocketSTEM .org 65