Dear readers and followers,
few days after the terrific failure during take-off of the Antares space rocket, the space community starts to see the consequences for the all projects linked to this dramatic event. The rocket was carrying more than 2200 kg of equipment and supplies for the international space station. No one was injured when the rocket, built and launched by +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc., exploded into what witnesses said looked like a "ball of fire" after lifting off from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.
Credit image: +NASA
Actually, over a dozen school projects were onboard the U.S. supply rocket that exploded shortly after liftoff from the Virginia regional space launch pad. Fortunately, a group of California students will have another shot at getting their project.
Credit image: Urban promise academy middle school
The project, developed by students at the Urban Promise Academy middle school in Oakland, would have sent the worms to the International Space Station to study the effects of space on composting."They were very distressed initially when the rocket blew up. Of all the points of potential failure, that wasn't one that students or staff had anticipated," said Flint, a staff member of the school leading this student project. But Flint added that school officials were assured they would have a second chance to send the project into space on an upcoming launch, though it was not immediately clear when.
The study of life in space is a huge topic and many experiment are done in orbit, such as the last one of the Russian space program with gecko.
The project was among 18 student investigations onboard the rocket when it exploded, according to a NASA statement. The winners were selected from a pool of nearly 1500 proposals from across the country, +NASA said.
