Worms of school projects onboard Antares rocket have been also lost

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.

It was not immediately clear whether the other projects would also be included on another flight.

Source: +NASA 

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Incident Response Team completed an initial assessment of Wallops Island

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The Wallops Incident Response Team completed today an initial assessment of Wallops Island, Virginia, following the catastrophic failure of Orbital Science Corp.’s Antares rocket shortly after liftoff at 6:22 p.m. (local time, EDT) Tuesday, October 28th , from Pad 0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. 

“I want to praise the launch team, range safety, all of our emergency responders and those who provided mutual aid and support on a highly-professional response that ensured the safety of our most important resource, our people,” announced Bill Wrobel, Wallops director. “In the coming days and weeks ahead, we'll continue to assess the damage on the island and begin the process of moving forward to restore our space launch capabilities. There's no doubt in my mind that we will rebound stronger than ever.”

The initial assessment is a cursory look; it will take many more weeks to further understand and analyze the full extent of the effects of the event. A number of support buildings in the immediate area have broken windows and imploded doors. A sounding rocket launcher adjacent to the pad, and buildings nearest the pad, suffered the most severe damage. At Pad 0A the initial assessment showed damage to the transporter erector launcher and lightning suppression rods, as well as debris around the pad.

The Wallops environmental team also is conducting assessments at the site. Preliminary observations are that the environmental effects of the launch failure were largely contained within the southern third of Wallops Island, in the area immediately adjacent to the pad. Immediately after the incident, the Wallops’ industrial hygienist collected air samples at the Wallops mainland area, the Highway 175 causeway, and on Chincoteague Island. No hazardous substances were detected at the sampled locations. Additional air, soil and water samples will be collected from the incident area as well as at control sites for comparative analysis.

The Coast Guard and Virginia Marine Resources Commission reported today they have not observed any obvious signs of water pollution, such as oil sheens. Furthermore, initial assessments have not revealed any obvious impacts to fish or wildlife resources. The Incident Response Team continues to monitor and assess.

Credit image: +NASA Wallops 

Based on initial sweeps conducted by an Orbital safety team, it appears a significant amount of debris remains on the site and it is likely substantial hardware evidence will be available to aid in determining root cause of the Antares launch failure. Some of the Cygnus cargo has also been found and will be retrieved as soon as they have clearance to do so to see if any survived intact. 

After up close visual inspections by the safety team, it still appears the launch site itself avoided major damage. There is some evidence of damage to piping that runs between the fuel and commodity storage vessels and the launch mount, but no evidence of significant damage to either the storage vessels or launch mount. Detailed evaluations by MARS and their engineering team will occur in the next couple of days. An Orbital-led team has begun cataloging and documenting the location of all pieces of debris over the next several days after which the debris will be relocated to storage bays on the island for further evaluation.

Telemetry data has been released to Orbital and their engineers presented a very quick look assessment to the Accident Investigation Board at the end of the day. It appears the Antares vehicle had a nominal pre-launch and launch sequence with no issues noted. All systems appeared to be performing nominally until approximately T+15 seconds at which point the failure occurred. 

Evidence suggests the failure initiated in the first stage after which the vehicle lost its propulsive capability and fell back to the ground impacting near, but not on, the launch pad. Prior to impacting the ground, the rocket’s Flight Termination System was engaged by the designated official in the Wallops Range Control Center.

Source: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. and +NASA


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Antares rocket failed during its launch to ISS and exploded

Dear readers and followers,

The +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc.'s Antares rocket lifted off to start its third resupply mission to the International Space Station, but suffered a catastrophic anomaly shortly after liftoff at 6:22 p.m. EDT. The Orbital Sciences team is executing its contingency procedures, securing the site and data, including all telemetry from the Antares launch vehicle and Cygnus spacecraft. Before launch the Orbital team was not tracking any issues.No injuries have been reported, and Orbital reports that all personnel around the Wallops Flight Facility launch site have been accounted for.

Credit video: +NASA Wallops 

"Launching rockets is an incredibly difficult undertaking, and we learn from each success and each setback. Today's launch attempt will not deter us from our work to expand our already successful capability to launch cargo from American shores to the International Space Station.” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of +NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, regarding today's Orbital Sciences Corp's launch mishap.

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. 

Damage was contained to the hazard area, but there may have been a scattering of debris. Public safety is our number one priority. If people find debris in the vicinity of the launch tonight, please stay away & call the Incident Response Team at 757-824-1295.

Source: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. and +NASA


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Antares rocket launch from NASA's Wallops could be seen in Washington D.C. this evening

Dear readers and followers,

[Update]: Orbital Sciences is set to try a second attempt to launch its Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo ship today at 6:22 p.m. EDT the launch window is about 10 minutes long. Public viewing of the launch will be available at the NASA Visitor Center at Wallops, as well as at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Assateague Island National Seashore.

The launch of the Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia may be visible in D.C. this evening, October 28th 2014. Coverage of the mission begins at noon and will be live-streamed here.

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. 

The Orbital Sciences’ rocket will carry Orbital’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft. Its payload is about 5,000 25000 kg of supplies and experiments, dedicated for the International Space Station. The spce launch is scheduled at 6:45 p.m. Today, October 28th. If weather permitting, people from DC should be able to see the rocket approximately 180 seconds after launch, as presented in the following picture. 

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc.

Source: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc.

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Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo was berthed and installed with success to ISS

Dear followers,

after its successful lift-off from Earth 3 days ago, the Antares rocket developed by Orbital Sciences released its payload and the Cygnus was berthed and installed with success to the International Science Station. 

Credit image : Orbital Sciences

The module will remain for around one month while the crew of the space station transfers the 1.5 tons of provisions and experiments delivered by the private capsule, Cygnus. Enjoy the video:

Credit : +NASA 

Successful lift-off of the Antares rocket carrying equipments for ISS

Dear followers,

After a decrease of the radiation level which delayed the liftoff this week, the space launch  of the Antares rocket was performed. If you missed the Orb1 rocket launch to the ISS yesterday, enjoy this video 

Credit: +NASA 

Orb-1 mission of the Antares rocket delayed due to high space radiation environment

Dear followers,

yesterday, we announced that the Antares is already on the launch Pad-0A at +NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. This morning, the Antares launch team decided to delay the space launch due to an unusually high level of space radiation that exceeded by a considerable margin the constraints imposed on the mission to ensure the rocket's electronic systems are not impacted by a harsh radiation environment.

Image source : Orbital Science

The space rocket is in advance of a planned launch on January 8th at 1:32 p.m. EST on the Wallops Island, VA. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Among the cargo aboard Cygnus set to launch to the international space station are science experiments, crew provisions, and other hardware. 

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[Update] : if the level of radiations moves down, Orbital Sciences announces that the launch could be performed on Thursday, the launch targeted launch time would be 1:10 p.m. (EST), with Cygnus arriving at the ISS Sunday morning, January 12.

Antares ready on the launch pad for its lift-off on Wednesday 8th

Dear follower,

I wish you a happy new year 2014, and today, the Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the +International Space Station from Orbital Sciences Corporation is already on the launch Pad-0A at +NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. The space rocket is in advance of a planned launch on January 8th at 1:32 p.m. EST on the Wallops Island, VA. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Among the cargo aboard Cygnus set to launch to the international space station are science experiments, crew provisions, and other hardware. 

Below a picture of the rocket on the pad, it's a great picture for a 2014 wallpaper !

 Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Stay tuned for the live streaming of the space launch on Wednesday

The dream of Dennis Tito: send its own Mars mission before the end of 2017

Dear followers,

in 2013, the red planet, Mars, was the focus of many news : The rover Curiosity, discovery of water in the ground of Mars,  the launch of the Maven mission ... But today, the martian dream of the billionaire Dennis Tito is pop-up on the news. 

He has revealed his scheme for send two astronauts (a man and a woman) to the red planet before the end of 2017 or in January 2018. His wishes to send some humans is due to the "rare alignments" of planets which should be exploited as the context of the project which requite a minimal rocket fuel. The mission, called "Inspiration Mars" would be a 501-day US mission to the planet but without landing on its surface.  

Two separate trips would be necessary for the Mars Mission. First, the billionaire proposes that the first launch would involve a NASA rocket delivering the vehicle into orbit that would actually go onto Mars. Next, a second space launch would carry the two astronauts which would later be united with the spacecraft, preliminary orbited.

For this mission, the Tito's organization would prefer use the Orbital Sciences Corporation's new Cygnus capsule which finished its first mission to the international space station in October. In an other hand, they decided to reject the NASA's new Orion capsule which seems propose the mission requirements.

We will propose you more details soon about this amazing project, so stay tune.

A private capsule launched with success to ISS

Dear followers,

yesterday was a busy day for the space launches in USA. Actually after the successful liftoff of the space rocket Atlas5, the private company, Orbital Sciences, became the second private challenger to successfully launch a cargo vessel to the International Space Station. The lift off could be watched from New York was depicted on the picture below.

Credit: Orbital Sciences / +Google Earth 

The next step for the Cygnus spacecraft is four days of tests while its in orbit. If successful, the mission will take a rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station on Sunday, September 22th , as the ATV4, from +European Space Agency, ESA did few weeks ago.

The liftoff of the space rocket Antares happened from the center of Wallops Flight, located on an island near the coast of Virginia. Cygnus is separated from the second stage of the launcher ten minutes after launch to reach the Earth orbit. 

For this first flight, Cygnus carries 589 kg of supplies including food and clothing. It will remain docked to the ISS thirty days. Upon his return, Cygnus will be destroyed in the atmosphere.

Source