Refurbished Russian engines early suspects in Antares rocket explosion

A $200 million private resupply mission to the International Space Station went up in flames moments after launch. In an effort to figure out what exactly went wrong, investigators from NASA and the National Safety Board are combing an enormous debris field that includes the launch site and nearby waters. While it is too early, some experts are pointing to one possibility – Orbital Science’s reliance on old, refurbished Russian rocket engines that it used to propel the Antares Tuesday night. Earlier models of these Soviet-era engines were originally built for rockets that would have taken cosmonauts into deep space, but that plan was abandoned after a series of rocket failures in the early 1970s.

The engines gathered dust in storage for years until the Washington-based company [Orbital Sciences] bought them up to use in their NASA-contracted missions.

Andrew Fazekas, Yahoo News Canada science columnist

The unmanned Antares rocket exploded above Orbital Sciences’ Wallops Flight Test Facility off the East Coast of Virginia about six seconds after leaving the launch pad. This is the first loss of a NASA-contracted commercial rocket since the space agency handed over the reins of resupplying the International Space Station after retiring the space shuttle fleet in 2011. The rocket appears to have exploded moments after blastoff in midair and then fell back to Earth. With 750,000 pounds of fuel on board, it exploded again in a giant ball of fire; the thunderous explosion was even reported to have noticeably shaken the surrounding area.

Reports now say that soon after Antares cleared the launch tower safely, crews knew something was awry with the rocket and sent a self-destruct signal that destroyed it.

Andrew Fazekas

Antares Americas