Orbital Sciences Antares test launch scrubbed after malfunction

Orbital Sciences has a contract with NASA to help resupply the space station with its Antares rocket. A test launch Wednesday was abandoned when a cord detached prematurely.

|
Steve Helber/AP
Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket sits on the launch pad along the beach at the NASA facility on Wallops Island Va.

The launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket was scrubbed Wednesday afternoon after an umbilical cord to the rocket's second stage detached prematurely.

The rocket is one of two commercial rockets NASA is relying on to resupply the International Space Station in the post-space-shuttle era.

Umbilical cords typically supply power and allow flight controllers to monitor a rocket's systems until shortly before launch, when these functions are transferred to the rocket's internal control systems.

The cord dropped from its connector about 12 minutes before the main engines were to ignite. The ground team must drain the fuel tanks before technicians can reach the rocket and pinpoint the cause of the failure.

The mission has been billed as a test flight. It aims to iron out any wrinkles in the processes and hardware used at the pad, in addition to demonstrating that the rocket can deliver a payload to orbit. In this case, the payload is a full-size, full-weight mock-up of the cargo carrier Orbital Sciences has designed to carry cargo.

"You learn a little bit form every launch attempt. So we'll take the lessons learned today and move into another launch attempt as soon as it's safe to do so," said John Steinmeyer, a senior project manager at Orbital Sciences.

The test represents a milestone Orbital Science must clear under its $1.9 billion contract with NASA for eight cargo missions through 2015. Successful completion of this mission represents an immediate check for $4 million from the agency, whose payouts to this point depend on the company passing specified milestones.

In all, Mr. Steinmeyer says, the contract with NASA represents "the most ambitious collaboration to date" for the company, which has been building and launching satellites and smaller rockets for more than 30 years.

The launch site, dubbed the the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport, is run by the Virginia Commonwealth Spaceflight Authority, a collaboration between Virginia and Maryland.

The spaceport was established in 1997 at the southern end of NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility. Participants broke ground on Antares's launch pad in June 2009.

Until now, rockets launched from Wallops Island have tended to be suborbital sounding rockets, whose motors burn solid fuel. Antares' installation required pumps, plumbing, and tank farm needed to store and deliver the chilled liquid fuel that Antares's main engines require.

The launch window for this test extends through April 21. If troubleshooting goes well, Orbital Sciences could try again as soon as Friday.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Orbital Sciences Antares test launch scrubbed after malfunction
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0417/Orbital-Sciences-Antares-test-launch-scrubbed-after-malfunction
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe