Rocket bound for Space Station explodes seconds after lift off.

Lapin

An unmanned supply rocket bound for the International Space Station has exploded during its launch from the US state of Virginia.

Antares, a 14-storey rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp, combusted seconds after leaving the seaside launch pad at Wallops Flight Facility.

The cause of the cargo ship malfunction has yet to be determined.

The initial planned launch of the spacecraft on Monday was delayed due to a sailboat in nearby waters.

More, BBC


Bit concerning that this can happen given the vast budgets and expertise involved in sending these rockets up to space.

But then, given the vast number sent up over the decades, it could be said that its surprising that incidents like it don't occur more often.

But with continual improvements in rocket science it really shouldn't be happening now.

Fortunately this mission was unmanned.

The One Doctor

It was great fun seeing it blow up. I laughed a lot. Everyone loves seeing stuff exploding (if no-one is hurt).

Nerdy bit: It looked like a turbopump failure from what I saw.

fleet_admiral

Thats deadly, it reminded me of my childhood at Halloween

Duggy747

In before: "What about the black babies in Africa instead of this silly space nonsense?"

These cargo rockets are pretty common so it's still a testament to their engineering that it doesn't happen more often than it does considering the amount of things that can go wrong within the first few minutes of launch.

Macavity.

Boom.

Captain Chaos

We're all set for the manned Mars mission so....... right who's first.

Lapin

The One Doctor wrote: »

It was great fun seeing it blow up. I laughed a lot. Everyone loves seeing stuff exploding (if no-one is hurt).

I laughed more at the commentator continuing to describe the aim of the mission even after the thing blew up.

It looked as though he only noticed something was up (or coming back down in this case) when he looked up from his script. :pac:

foxy farmer

Houston we have a problem.

BBDBB

have they tried turning off and back on again?

BorneTobyWilde

http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/853/098/358/resized/ancient-aliens-invisible-something-meme-generator-im-not-saying-it-was-aliens-but-it-was-aliens-a0f6bd.jpg

BorneTobyWilde

Looked like some sort of failure .

Skylinehead

Lapin wrote: »

Bit concerning that this can happen given the vast budgets and expertise involved in sending these rockets up to space.

Not really, at the end of the day it's still 200 tons of explosive in a tube.

Ruu

Ground control to major tom...

The Th!ng

I'll laugh my arse off if this is another 4Chan stunt.

shamrock55

2014 and we cant even send a bit of cargo into space, infact we cant even send it a few ft into the air:D

scouttio

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Looked like some sort of failure .

Astute observation there

alias no.9

Alan Sheperd (first American to travel into space) wrote:

It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

Sobering indeed

Tail Docker

More of a roman candle than a rocket. Nasas Halloween effort?

BBDBB

How long before its declared a black flag operation to justify US hostility in the middle east?

rebel girl 15

I watched the whole thing live, was unbelievable to see it blow up like that - everything seemed fine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WICHixFEYHI

Press conference in 10 minutes on the NASA channel. It was a rocket designed by a private company to bring 5,000KG of supplies to the ISS, including over 600KG of food.

The Diabolical Monocle

beeep

but the ben and jerrys is on another rocket right ?

beeep

BlaasForRafa

It was klingons off the starboard bow

Senna

"These are actually modified Russian-built power units that were originally developed for the ill-fated Soviet Moon rocket, the N-1.

Development work started on the N1 in 1959."

Jesus the Russians knew how to build something right the first time.


Edit. obviously except for the huge failure today

rebel girl 15

Orbital Science Corporation have a $1.3 billion contract with NASA to deliver 8 supply rockets to the ISS. This was the third of the 8 to go up. NASA confirmed that there was no personnel injury on Wallops Island, Virginia.

I decided to watch it live after seeing it on Twitter, had never seen a live rocket launch before, still haven't seen one

nokia69

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Orbital Science Corporation have a $1.3 billion contract with NASA to deliver 8 supply rockets to the ISS. This was the third of the 8 to go up. NASA confirmed that there was no personnel injury on Wallops Island, Virginia.

I decided to watch it live after seeing it on Twitter, had never seen a live rocket launch before, still haven't seen one

watch the next spaceX launch in december

if it goes well they will make history

they are trying lo land the first stage so it can be used again

mikeyjames9

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

I watched the whole thing live, was unbelievable to see it blow up like that - everything seemed fine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WICHixFEYHI

Press conference in 10 minutes on the NASA channel. It was a rocket designed by a private company to bring 5,000KG of supplies to the ISS, including over 600KG of food.

IS are in space now then?

The Diabolical Monocle

Maybe if there hadnt been so many fervent deniers of Christ in the area the rocket would have had the blessing of G-D

Lapin

Skylinehead wrote: »

Not really, at the end of the day it's still 200 tons of explosive in a tube.

At last. Someone who knows stuff.


Tell us this then while we have you here, is that the reason these rockets have signs like this one on the side of them?

kowloon

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Orbital Science Corporation have a $1.3 billion contract with NASA to deliver 8 supply rockets to the ISS. This was the third of the 8 to go up. NASA confirmed that there was no personnel injury on Wallops Island, Virginia.

I decided to watch it live after seeing it on Twitter, had never seen a live rocket launch before, still haven't seen one

Yeah, best of luck to them with that.

vicwatson

Whats the biggie here.. fact it blew up or fact if blew up live on bbc? They seem to admire the latter. Hope astronauts don't starve tonight!! No freeze dried curry for them !!

Shiny Happy Sheeple

Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

Scarinae

I was following this too because it's relevant to my job. Check out this video from the press viewing site:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ0SgAU9LXI

("Holy mackerel!")

rebel girl 15

Reading up on it, it was their first use of a bigger second stage, which would allow them to deliver bigger amounts of supplies in the future. It was a 15% increase on the load of previous missions

rebel girl 15

Wonder would the day's delay in the launch be a contributing factor to any of it - the fact that some idiot in a boat decided to wander downrange of the launch yesterday which resulted in the launch being scrubbed

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html# has the press conference

vicwatson

Scarinae wrote: »

I was following this too because it's relevant to my job. Check out this video from the press viewing site:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ0SgAU9LXI

("Holy mackerel!")

"Oh god oh god oh god". This guy jerking off or what?

BlaasForRafa

The russkies aren't adverse to a crash now and then either..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyiglXHqbNw

refusetolose

conference coming on

http://blogs.nasa.gov/orbital/

nokia69

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Wonder would the day's delay in the launch be a contributing factor to any of it - the fact that some idiot in a boat decided to wander downrange of the launch yesterday which resulted in the launch being scrubbed

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html# has the press conference

it looks like a failure of one of the first stage engines

the delay would not have caused that

kneemos

Skylinehead wrote: »

Not really, at the end of the day it's still 200 tons of explosive in a tube.

Yeah baby.

Lapin

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Orbital Science Corporation have a $1.3 billion contract with NASA to deliver 8 supply rockets to the ISS. This was the third of the 8 to go up. NASA confirmed that there was no personnel injury on Wallops Island, Virginia.

Well, I suppose if you're gonna have a milti million dollar rocket get blown to smithereens and come crashing back down to earth, where better for it to happen than a place called Wallop Island !

Karl Stein

More proof that the Americans never actually went to space. It's a disgrace that they spend so much money blowing up rockets in an attempt to convince the public they did land men on other planets.

fleet_admiral

Karl Stein wrote: »

More proof that the Americans never actually went to space. It's a disgrace that they spend so much money blowing up rockets in an attempt to convince the public they did land men on other planets.

Here we go

Karl Stein

fleet_admiral wrote: »

Here we go

They were found out when Neil Armstrong and the other actors came back and they were obviously much bigger than the space suits that 'returned' with them.

It turned out the space suits had already been manufactured for a planned Gorilla launch that never went ahead - the idiots at NASA used the Gorilla suits for the whole charade to save money.

endacl

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallops_Flight_Facility

Not really surprising. Rocket explodes. At Wallops flight facility!

WTF did they think would happen? Operations are to be moved to B'doingggg naval base, where it is hoped malfunctioning rockets will simply bounce into orbit.

:pac:

Lapin

Karl Stein wrote: »

More proof that the Americans never actually went to space. It's a disgrace that they spend so much money blowing up rockets in an attempt to convince the public they did land men on other planets.

Grand, so they were just sending the yoke up there to supply a space station they never sent up in the first place.

They never claimed to put men on other planets. (Although you sound like you're on a different one already).




I can't believe I replied to this rubbish.

Karl Stein

Lapin wrote: »

Grand, so they were just sending the yoke up there to supply a space station they never sent up in the first place.

It's quite obviously a controlled explosion.

They never claimed to put men on other planets. (Although you sound like you're on a different one already).

Please don't insult me.

Lapin

Karl Stein wrote: »

Please don't insult me.

Right. You're not from another planet then. Ok.


Wanna discuss the moon instead?

kneemos

Karl Stein wrote: »

They were found out when Neil Armstrong and the other actors came back and they were obviously much bigger than the space suits that 'returned' with them.

It turned out the space suits had already been manufactured for a planned Gorilla launch that never went ahead - the idiots at NASA used the Gorilla suits for the whole charade to save money.

Why the fcuk would they launch a Gorilla into space.
You ever seen a Gorilla?big,aggressive.Much bigger than a male so the suits were obviously not for Gorillas.

Bipolar Joe

Of course they put man on the moon, how else did they build the alien research facility where they clone world leaders? Fucking DUH!

YFlyer

vicwatson wrote: »

"Oh god oh god oh god". This guy jerking off or what?

Danger ****

Crasp

Be very unfortunate if this explosion had been visible from space...