NASA's Antares rocket explodes shortly after launch

This is what happens if you use 50 year old Russian Engines.
No - really 50 years old. They were built for the Russian Moon Program and warehoused after the rocket blew up on the launchpad and destroyed everything for about a km. And yes - the rocket blew up because of a engine fault.
 
Compton_effect said:
This is what happens if you use 50 year old Russian Engines.
No - really 50 years old. They were built for the Russian Moon Program and warehoused after the rocket blew up on the launchpad and destroyed everything for about a km. And yes - the rocket blew up because of a engine fault.
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Yes, these engines may be 50 years old, the NK-33 was produced between 1960-1970, but overhauled by an American rocket company between 2010-2013 when mods (then renamed to AJ26-58, AJ26-59 and AJ26-62) was done to accommodate the Orbital Sciences Antares launcher. The NK-33 American stockpiles was only made available in 2010.

They utilised the NK-33 due to it having the second highest thrust-to-weight ratio (Earth-launchable rocket engine).

Here is more, Wiki link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33

Antares

The Orbital Sciences Antares light-to-medium-lift launcher has two modified NK-33 in its first stage, a solid Castor 30-based second stage and an optional solid or hypergolic third stage.[16] The NK-33s are imported from Russia to the United States and modified into Aerojet AJ26s, which involves removing some electrical harnessing, adding U.S. electronics, qualifying it for U.S. propellants, and modifying the steering system.[1]

The Antares rocket was successfully launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on April 21, 2013. This marked the first successful launch of the NK-33 heritage engines built in early 1970s.[17]

Aerojet has agreed to recondition sufficient NK-33s to serve Orbital's 16-flight NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract. Beyond that, it has a stockpile of 23 1960s and 1970s era engines. Kuznetsov no longer manufactures the engine, and the lack of a continuing supplier brings into question the long-term viability of Antares. To address this, Orbital has sought to buy RD-180 engines, but maker NPO Energomash's contract with United Launch Alliance prevents this. Orbital has sued ULA for this, alleging anti-trust violations.[18] Aerojet has offered to work with Kuznetsov to restart production of new NK-33 engines, to assure Orbital of an ongoing supply.[19]
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The Russians today utilises the MK-33A (updated in 2013), they had done one maiden already.
 
Compton_effect said:
This is what happens if you use 50 year old Russian Engines.
No - really 50 years old. They were built for the Russian Moon Program and warehoused after the rocket blew up on the launchpad and destroyed everything for about a km. And yes - the rocket blew up because of a engine fault.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the N1. That one blew up with an explosion of roughly half the power of the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The very fact that Orbital Sciences is using 50-year-old engines should be cause for NASA to show them the door. Doesn't matter the percentage of these engines that are rebuilt... I wouldn't trust anything containing 50-year-old parts in a rocket.
 
I must say the guy talking showed great restraint, pretty sure an Oh **** would've left my lips at that stage...

But you can see there's a problem even while it was still on the launch pad. I thought it wouldn't even get off the ground watching that.
 
It was carrying my tax refund, that's why it exploded :) Now i'll never get it.
 
The entire 2013 GDP for Peru flushed in 6 seconds. Impressive.
 
The_Assimilator said:
Ah yes, the N1. That one blew up with an explosion of roughly half the power of the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The very fact that Orbital Sciences is using 50-year-old engines should be cause for NASA to show them the door. Doesn't matter the percentage of these engines that are rebuilt... I wouldn't trust anything containing 50-year-old parts in a rocket.
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Apparently all critical parts was rebuilt to suit the Antares rocket. Two AJ26-62 was used in this launch. Interesting enough, that they didn't opt to utilise the SpaceX Merlin 1D engine... also noting that they had delays with the MK-33 reconditioning and testing, probable budget and time constraint issues.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
Apparently all critical parts was rebuilt to suit the Antares rocket. Two AJ26-62 was used in this launch. Interesting enough, that they didn't opt to utilise the SpaceX Merlin 1D engine... also noting that they had delays with the MK-33 reconditioning and testing, probable budget and time constraint issues.
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This is the second refurbished one that blew up. One disintegrated on a test stand a while ago.
Hopefully the problem was not the engine, but if so - between that and some disagreements with Russia on the supply. Ouch - the end of that idea. Back to the drawing board.
Problem is - SpaceX's Merlin 1 production line is running at full speed, rolled out its 100'th one a few days ago. But their inventory is all locked down for scheduled Falcon 9 Launches. If Orbital is grounded for a few months, SpaceX will be the only player flying.

Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos's secretive lot) has just formed a partnership with Unite Launch Alliance to build a new rocket engine of the same class. But even with the rapid build-fly-and-burn design methodology the new startups are using - it would be months, of not years from operational use.
 
Fulcrum29 said:
Apparently all critical parts was rebuilt to suit the Antares rocket.
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Who defines "critical"? If even a single part in those engines is still 50 years old, there's a problem (metal fatigue to name just one) - it feels to me like OrbSci are cutting corners, and they have paid for it today.

Fulcrum29 said:
Interesting enough, that they didn't opt to utilise the SpaceX Merlin 1D engine... also noting that they had delays with the MK-33 reconditioning and testing, probable budget and time constraint issues.
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Somehow I think OrbSci would unwilling to use a competitor's engine... probably just as unwilling as SpaceX would be to allow them to use it...
 
The_Assimilator said:
Who defines "critical"? If even a single part in those engines is still 50 years old, there's a problem (metal fatigue to name just one) - it feels to me like OrbSci are cutting corners, and they have paid for it today.



Somehow I think OrbSci would unwilling to use a competitor's engine... probably just as unwilling as SpaceX would be to allow them to use it...
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Like I mentioned above - snowballs's chance in heck of that happening. Spacex's production line is booked solid already.
 
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