Antares Rocket Destroyed Intentionally

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Shortly after liftoff of Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares Rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia on Tuesday, Oct. 28, it became apparent to the operators that there was a problem with the launch and they hit the destruct button. Barron Beneski, vice president of corporate communications at Orbital, confirmed that the flight termination system was engaged. According to observers in the space community, doing so prevented the rocket from putting people at risk as it was not going to achieve orbit. The first stage of the rocket was powered by two Aerojet AJ26-58 engines (liquid-fueled rockets have engines, solid-fueled rockets have motors), which are modified Soviet NK-33 engines originally built in the late 1960s or early 1970s and stockpiled for a Soviet moon rocket that was never made operational.

Criticism has been leveled at American commercial space operators for using Soviet-era engines; however, the Kuznetsov Design Bureau NK-33 has among the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any rocket engine in the world. The lack of American-built engines reflects an unwillingness of the U.S. government to invest in rocket engine development after the Apollo moon landings. Orbital Sciences modifies and updates the NK-33 into the Aerojet AJ26 by removing some electrical harnessing, adding U.S. electronics, modifying it for U.S. propellants and modifying the steering system. Orbital Sciences has already used the Aerojet AJ26-powered Antares to fly its Cygnus vehicle to the space station three times. The day after the Antares event, United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V to place a GPS satellite into orbit; it also used a Russian engine, the RD-180-a derivative of the Soviet era RD-170 engine.

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