Was launched to deliver supplies to ISS.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: NASA’s contracted-rocket mission Orb-3, which was supposed to deliver supplies to the International Space Station exploded seconds after lift-off.
The unmanned mission got off the launch pad, engulfed in flames, but NASA’s officials said there is no human causality.
The Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo which forms the Orb-3 spacecraft was assembled by Orbital Sciences Corp.’s and was launched from the NASA’s launch pad in Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Wallops Island, Virginia at 6:22 pm ET, on Tuesday.
Just 6 seconds after take-off, a sudden explosion rocked the fuel chamber, later disintegrating the cargo that contained 5,000 pounds of supplies that includes 1500 pound of food and 3500 pounds of materials necessary for various experiments in the ISS.
On hitting the ground the rocket literally became a fireball, as the rest of the supplies inside the spacecraft accelerated the combustion.
The mission is estimated to have cost around $200 million according to the General Manager of Orbital’s Advanced Programs Group but the damage cost is projected far beyond that as the launch pad and other equipment in the ground station came under direct contact with the debris.
NASA’s Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier said after the horrific crash that “tonight’s events really show the difficulty that it takes for us to do this task of delivering cargo to the space station.”
The ill-fated Orb-3 was scheduled for launch this Monday but NASA postponed it “because of a boat down range in the trajectory Antares would have flown had it lifted off.”
NASA reported a 100% favourable condition for the launch with “no technical concerns with the rocket or spacecraft being worked.” But fate of Orb-3 was already sealed as it came down to where it started, in its worst possible condition.
CNN’s Reporter Dymetria Sellers, was heard saying “breathtakingly beautiful” sight as the rocket came down in the background of an early night-time sky. She later said “about 30 seconds later, we could hear and feel two booms reach us, and it was apparent the rocket had exploded.”
Orbital’s executive vice president Frank Culbertson said “what we know so far is pretty much what everybody saw on the video. The ascent stopped, there was some, let’s say disassembly, of the first stage, and then it fell to Earth. … We don’t really have any early indications of exactly what might have failed, and we need some time to look at that.”
Following the failed mission Russia has offered help to the United States to deliver supplies to the ISS. Alexei Krasnov, a Russian space agency official told state-run RIA Novosti news agency “If a request is made for the urgent delivery of any American supplies to the ISS with the help of our vessels then we will satisfy the request.”
NASA officials said that they will conduct a detailed examination to determine the reason for the explosion and proper precautions will be taken to avoid any such incidents in the future take offs that support the ISS.
Orbital Sciences was given the contract to deliver cargos to the ISS in 2008 and till now the company has launched five missions and this is their first unsuccessful launch.