Orbital Antares rocket makes test flight

[Byeman]

AToday that organization is a bloated pork barrel Congressional play-toy suitable only for finding cubical's in which to house so-so Engineer's and bean-counters; an outfit tasked with proving Global Climate Change, reaching out to Moslem's, and turning former research facilities into National shrines dedicated to, 'the good old days'.

NASA is today an Engineer's Public Housing authority; able to do no better than revisit the Apollo days by winding the tape backwards and calling the results, Orion. Not with my money, thank you very much!

BS and idiotic post. NASA is not defined by Orion. Know something before posting crap like this. NASA did ISS, COTS, MSL, Cassini, MRO, PHN, etc

 

[sferrin]

AToday that organization is a bloated pork barrel Congressional play-toy suitable only for finding cubical's in which to house so-so Engineer's and bean-counters; an outfit tasked with proving Global Climate Change, reaching out to Moslem's, and turning former research facilities into National shrines dedicated to, 'the good old days'.

NASA is today an Engineer's Public Housing authority; able to do no better than revisit the Apollo days by winding the tape backwards and calling the results, Orion. Not with my money, thank you very much!

BS and idiotic post. NASA is not defined by Orion. Know something before posting crap like this. NASA did ISS, COTS, MSL, Cassini, MRO, PHN, etc

Yeah, you probably don't want MSL in there. Have the wheels fallen off it yet?

 

[TomS]

The RD-180 was adopted mainly for political reasons, back when US-Russian space cooperation was a major policy objective. In theory, the joint agrement allows Pratt & Whitney to make the RD-180 in the US as well, but it hasn't been done (probably because Russian manufacturing is cheaper).

The NK-33 was adopted mainly because it was cheap, available, and an incredible performer (at least on paper).

wrong. RD-180 was adopted for the same reasons as the NK-33. The US gov't had no role in the choice of RD-180. LM chose it for the Atlas III and then used it on Atlas V

US Government certainly played a role in approving the use of RD-180 -- it could not have been adopted without fairly high-level agreement within the US government because it requires waivers on a bunch of tech transfer rules.

ULA seems to agree:

http://www.ulalaunch.com/faqs-rd-180.aspx

Why was the RD-180 engine originally selected?

The decision to use the RD-180 for the Atlas V launch vehicle is a result of post-cold war cooperation between U.S. businesses and the Russian defense industry. The RD-180 relationship was urged by the U.S. government as a means of preventing Russian military technology from proliferating. The RD-180 was jointly developed by U.S. and Russian Defense Industries to provide the Atlas V with a technologically advanced and reliable engine. Since then, the Atlas V product has provided enormous value and mission assurance for ULA customers.

 

[RadicalDisconnect]

AToday that organization is a bloated pork barrel Congressional play-toy suitable only for finding cubical's in which to house so-so Engineer's and bean-counters; an outfit tasked with proving Global Climate Change, reaching out to Moslem's, and turning former research facilities into National shrines dedicated to, 'the good old days'.

NASA is today an Engineer's Public Housing authority; able to do no better than revisit the Apollo days by winding the tape backwards and calling the results, Orion. Not with my money, thank you very much!

BS and idiotic post. NASA is not defined by Orion. Know something before posting crap like this. NASA did ISS, COTS, MSL, Cassini, MRO, PHN, etc

Yeah, you probably don't want MSL in there. Have the wheels fallen off it yet?

Is there something about the MSL that I'm not aware of?

 

[sferrin]

AToday that organization is a bloated pork barrel Congressional play-toy suitable only for finding cubical's in which to house so-so Engineer's and bean-counters; an outfit tasked with proving Global Climate Change, reaching out to Moslem's, and turning former research facilities into National shrines dedicated to, 'the good old days'.

NASA is today an Engineer's Public Housing authority; able to do no better than revisit the Apollo days by winding the tape backwards and calling the results, Orion. Not with my money, thank you very much!

BS and idiotic post. NASA is not defined by Orion. Know something before posting crap like this. NASA did ISS, COTS, MSL, Cassini, MRO, PHN, etc

Yeah, you probably don't want MSL in there. Have the wheels fallen off it yet?

Is there something about the MSL that I'm not aware of?

They were only about 5% through the planned driving distance and they'd already worn holes in the wheels. Metal wheels.

 

[kcran567]

That wheel looks like its been used for years. What is causing so much wear and tear on the metal? oxidation? Temperature?


About the state of US/NASA rocket engineering, where did it go wrong? It doesn't seem like a superpower nation has much of a space program if they need their Cold War enemy to supply basic rocket engines.
Isn't China also "relying" on Russian rocket engines for its space program?

 

[sferrin]

That wheel looks like its been used for years. What is causing so much wear and tear on the metal? oxidation? Temperature?


About the state of US/NASA rocket engineering, where did it go wrong? It doesn't seem like a superpower nation has much of a space program if they need their Cold War enemy to supply basic rocket engines.
Isn't China also "relying" on Russian rocket engines for its space program?

The thing weighs as much as a small car, the wheels are made of thin lightweight metal, and it's driving over abrasive, hard, sharp rock. I'm not sure what else they thought would happen.

 

[Dragon029]

Either way, the wheels are still enduring and the rover has since completed it's mission minimum expected duration (which passed 4 months ago) and now it's more or less operating in overtime.

 

[TomS]

What they thought would happen was that the terrain would be more like the other Mars rovers encountered, where traction in sand was more important than dealing with sharp rocks.

It turns out that there were a lot of factors that went into the wheel design that was adopted and it seems to be working well enough.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/08190630-curiosity-wheel-damage.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

Back to Antares: http://gizmodo.com/nasas-unmanned-antares-rocket-just-exploded-immediately-1651991388

Here is the full cargo manifest from NASA (via SpaceFlightInsider):

Science investigations: 1,602.8 lbs.
-U.S. science: 1,254.4 lbs
-International partner science: 348.3 lbs

Crew supplies: 1,649 lbs
-Equipment: 273.4 lbs
-Food: 1,360.3 lbs
-Flight prcedure books: 15.4 lbs

Vehicle hardware: 1,404.3 lbs
-U.S. hardware: 1,338.2 lbs
-JAXA hardware: 66.1 lbs


Spacewalk equipment: 145.5 lbs


Computer resources: 81.6 lbs
-Command and data handling equipment: 75 lbs
-Photopgraphy/TV equipment: 6.6 lbs

 

[blackstar]

That wheel looks like its been used for years. What is causing so much wear and tear on the metal? oxidation? Temperature?


About the state of US/NASA rocket engineering, where did it go wrong? It doesn't seem like a superpower nation has much of a space program if they need their Cold War enemy to supply basic rocket engines.
Isn't China also "relying" on Russian rocket engines for its space program?

The thing weighs as much as a small car, the wheels are made of thin lightweight metal, and it's driving over abrasive, hard, sharp rock. I'm not sure what else they thought would happen.

How many Mars rovers have you designed?

It's a fun game for people to point to the wheels and say--like you did--"they must be a bunch of idiots to have not known that would happen." Keep in mind that these are the same idiots who successfully landed the largest ever payload on Mars, one which is still working.

Why did that happen? Because the extensive experience they had with their other rovers never showed that kind of problem. All their soil data indicated much softer terrain. It just happens that Curiosity landed in an area with areas of terrain that include jagged ridges on top of rocks, which they had not seen before and they could not predict. They have since learned how to deal with that in their operations.

If you are really concerned about this, I can provide you with the mailing address where you can apply for a job at JPL and you can go work there and convince them to use your wheel designs instead.

 

[Byeman]

1. US Government certainly played a role in approving the use of RD-180 -- it could not have been adopted without fairly high-level agreement within the US government because it requires waivers on a bunch of tech transfer rules.

2. ULA seems to agree:

http://www.ulalaunch.com/faqs-rd-180.aspx

Why was the RD-180 engine originally selected?

The decision to use the RD-180 for the Atlas V launch vehicle is a result of post-cold war cooperation between U.S. businesses and the Russian defense industry. The RD-180 relationship was urged by the U.S. government as a means of preventing Russian military technology from proliferating. The RD-180 was jointly developed by U.S. and Russian Defense Industries to provide the Atlas V with a technologically advanced and reliable engine. Since then, the Atlas V product has provided enormous value and mission assurance for ULA customers.

1. Wrong, there is no tech transfer. The IP is still owned by the Russians. And it is did not have to "high-level agreement[/size] " in the gov't.
[/size]
[/size]2. ULA had no part in the decision. They did not exist and the RD-180 was used on the Atlas III before the Atlas V

 

[Byeman]

Yeah, you probably don't want MSL in there. Have the wheels fallen off it yet?

Another idiotic clueless snipe. What have you accomplished lately?

 

[sferrin]

That wheel looks like its been used for years. What is causing so much wear and tear on the metal? oxidation? Temperature?


About the state of US/NASA rocket engineering, where did it go wrong? It doesn't seem like a superpower nation has much of a space program if they need their Cold War enemy to supply basic rocket engines.
Isn't China also "relying" on Russian rocket engines for its space program?

The thing weighs as much as a small car, the wheels are made of thin lightweight metal, and it's driving over abrasive, hard, sharp rock. I'm not sure what else they thought would happen.

How many Mars rovers have you designed?

ROFL! How does that matter in the slightest? Seriously, that's gotta be the stupidest form of debate there is. It's like saying if you're not a chef you can't tell if food tastes bad or if your not a director you can't tell if a movie sucks. If the wheels were designed such that they're wearing out that much faster than anticipated clearly they were poorly designed.

 

[sferrin]

Yeah, you probably don't want MSL in there. Have the wheels fallen off it yet?

Another idiotic clueless snipe. What have you accomplished lately?

Well I didn't design something that failed 5% the way through it's task. The problem is so severe they've had to spend a lot of extra effort ($$$$) just figuring out how they were going to deal with it.

 

[Hobbes]

MSL's wheels did not fail. Cracks and holes were expected and designed for, and the wheels were designed to be still functional even when a large amount of their surface is removed.
The only thing that went wrong is the rate at which damage appeared was higher than anticipated. Despite this, they were able to finish the primary mission and they're still going several months into the extended mission.

Was there a problem? Yes. Did the mission fail? No. Did the mission fail at 5%? Hell no.

The Planetary Society blog post referred to by TomS is well worth reading.

There were several factors that drove them to design the wheels to be as lightweight as possible. The large size of the wheels means that very slight design changes add a substantial amount of mass. Increasing wheel thickness by one millimeter would add 10 kilograms to the rover's total mass. But total system mass wasn't the only constraint. Erickson explained that a major constraint arose from a tricky moment in the landing sequence, at the moment that the wheels deployed, while the rover was suspended from the bridle underneath the descent stage. The wheels' sudden drop imparted substantial forces on the mobility system, and keeping wheel mass as light as possible reduced those forces to manageable ones. There were other factors that made it important to keep wheel mass low.

 

[sferrin]

MSL's wheels did not fail. Cracks and holes were expected and designed for, and the wheels were designed to be still functional even when a large amount of their surface is removed.
The only thing that went wrong is the rate at which damage appeared was higher than anticipated. Despite this, they were able to finish the primary mission and they're still going several months into the extended mission.

Was there a problem? Yes. Did the mission fail? No. Did the mission fail at 5%? Hell no.

The Planetary Society blog post referred to by TomS is well worth reading.

There were several factors that drove them to design the wheels to be as lightweight as possible. The large size of the wheels means that very slight design changes add a substantial amount of mass. Increasing wheel thickness by one millimeter would add 10 kilograms to the rover's total mass. But total system mass wasn't the only constraint. Erickson explained that a major constraint arose from a tricky moment in the landing sequence, at the moment that the wheels deployed, while the rover was suspended from the bridle underneath the descent stage. The wheels' sudden drop imparted substantial forces on the mobility system, and keeping wheel mass as light as possible reduced those forces to manageable ones. There were other factors that made it important to keep wheel mass low.

The excessive wheel wear issue (such that they had to spend a lot of extra $$$ to figure out how they were going to deal with it) became apparent when ~5% of the total anticipated travel had elapsed.

 

[Hobbes]

They're not running the train service to Oxford, they're doing space exploration. Occasionally, something unexpected will happen. Can we stop pretending it should be otherwise?

 

[sferrin]

They're not running the train service to Oxford, they're doing space exploration. Occasionally, something unexpected will happen. Can we stop pretending it should be otherwise?

When did I say otherwise? I merely pointed out that the wheels have issues. They do. I don't see why some are getting defensive about it.

 

[blackstar]

They're not running the train service to Oxford, they're doing space exploration. Occasionally, something unexpected will happen. Can we stop pretending it should be otherwise?

When did I say otherwise? I merely pointed out that the wheels have issues. They do. I don't see why some are getting defensive about it.

Uh, not defensive. If anything, we're on offense. Albeit against a rather easy target.

We think someone claiming to be smarter than the guys at JPL who designed a Mars rover might be a bit overstretching...

 

[sferrin]

They're not running the train service to Oxford, they're doing space exploration. Occasionally, something unexpected will happen. Can we stop pretending it should be otherwise?

When did I say otherwise? I merely pointed out that the wheels have issues. They do. I don't see why some are getting defensive about it.

Uh, not defensive. If anything, we're on offense. Albeit against a rather easy target.

We think someone claiming to be smarter than the guys at JPL who designed a Mars rover might be a bit overstretching...

Really? Where is this individual claiming to be smarter than the guys at JPL? Oh, that's right, attack the messenger because you've got squat when it comes to an actual debate. You really ought to drop that line of "reasoning" because it doesn't flatter you. If you took your car in to get repaired and the transmission fell out onto the pavement on the drive home would you need to be a mechanic the realize they did a crappy job?

 

[phil gollin]

Back to Antares: http://gizmodo.com/nasas-unmanned-antares-rocket-just-exploded-immediately-1651991388

Here is the full cargo manifest from NASA (via SpaceFlightInsider):

Science investigations: 1,602.8 lbs.
-U.S. science: 1,254.4 lbs
-International partner science: 348.3 lbs

Crew supplies: 1,649 lbs
-Equipment: 273.4 lbs
-Food: 1,360.3 lbs
-Flight prcedure books: 15.4 lbs

Vehicle hardware: 1,404.3 lbs
-U.S. hardware: 1,338.2 lbs
-JAXA hardware: 66.1 lbs


Spacewalk equipment: 145.5 lbs


Computer resources: 81.6 lbs
-Command and data handling equipment: 75 lbs
-Photopgraphy/TV equipment: 6.6 lbs

.


I thought NASA had gone metric ?


.

 

[merriman]

Back to Antares: http://gizmodo.com/nasas-unmanned-antares-rocket-just-exploded-immediately-1651991388

Here is the full cargo manifest from NASA (via SpaceFlightInsider):

Science investigations: 1,602.8 lbs.
-U.S. science: 1,254.4 lbs
-International partner science: 348.3 lbs

Crew supplies: 1,649 lbs
-Equipment: 273.4 lbs
-Food: 1,360.3 lbs
-Flight prcedure books: 15.4 lbs

Vehicle hardware: 1,404.3 lbs
-U.S. hardware: 1,338.2 lbs
-JAXA hardware: 66.1 lbs


Spacewalk equipment: 145.5 lbs


Computer resources: 81.6 lbs
-Command and data handling equipment: 75 lbs
-Photopgraphy/TV equipment: 6.6 lbs

.


I thought NASA had gone metric ?


.

NASA found that combining Imperial and Metric standards was the ideal system for computing Mars intercept orbits.

It just occured to me: If Elon Musk uses the NASA system, he indeed will die on impact.

Thoughts?

 

[Hobbes]

They're not running the train service to Oxford, they're doing space exploration. Occasionally, something unexpected will happen. Can we stop pretending it should be otherwise?

When did I say otherwise? I merely pointed out that the wheels have issues. They do. I don't see why some are getting defensive about it.

I had the distinct impression you were calling the MSL program a failure due to the wheel issues. That's what I'm disagreeing with.

 

[Byeman]

Really? Where is this individual claiming to be smarter than the guys at JPL? Oh, that's right, attack the messenger because you've got squat when it comes to an actual debate. You really ought to drop that line of "reasoning" because it doesn't flatter you. If you took your car in to get repaired and the transmission fell out onto the pavement on the drive home would you need to be a mechanic the realize they did a crappy job?

The point is that it isn't a crappy job and by calling it that and the other comments that you made, your qualifications do come into play and it doesn't flatter you.

 

[Byeman]

ROFL! How does that matter in the slightest? Seriously, that's gotta be the stupidest form of debate there is. It's like saying if you're not a chef you can't tell if food tastes bad or if your not a director you can't tell if a movie sucks. If the wheels were designed such that they're wearing out that much faster than anticipated clearly they were poorly designed.

Wrong. Some people are clueless and don't understand what certain foods are suppose to taste like or what movies are good. Since you don't know what the design considerations are for the wheels, you don't have the knowledge or experience to make such a statement.

 

[sferrin]

ROFL! How does that matter in the slightest? Seriously, that's gotta be the stupidest form of debate there is. It's like saying if you're not a chef you can't tell if food tastes bad or if your not a director you can't tell if a movie sucks. If the wheels were designed such that they're wearing out that much faster than anticipated clearly they were poorly designed.

Wrong. Some people are clueless and don't understand what certain foods are suppose to taste like or what movies are good. Since you don't know what the design considerations are for the wheels, you don't have the knowledge or experience to make such a statement.

Yeah, that's not how it works. When they have to reassess, and take special, UNANTICIPATED, precautions to continue the mission, with only 5% of the anticipated miles behind them, somebody screwed up. End of story. You can and puff and posture all you like. It doesn't change the facts. Trying to obfuscate things by throwing "design considerations" into the mix isn't helping you either. It's coming across as desperation. Design considerations ARE IRRELEVANT at this point.

Let me put this in simpler terms. If you took your car in to get the transmission fixed, and on your way home it fell out onto the road, would you need to be a mechanic to see they'd done a crappy job of it? Yes/no? The fact that they towed it back to the shop for you and fixed it doesn't change the fact that it was out of service longer than it should have been had they done the job correctly in the first place.

 

[antiquark]

somebody screwed up. End of story.

The screwup was in not predicting certain bizarre geology formations on the Martian surface:

No place we've ever been on Mars before has these kinds of embedded, pointy rocks. "To the layman, it all looks the same, but it's not," Erickson told me. "There is very hard rock that doesn't erode away uniformly. And you get ventifacts [wind-eroded pyramidal rocks] that are sharper than we'd like, and that are cemented into the ground. And so when you drive over them, they don't skitter out of the way, they don't get pressed into the sand, they just are something that you have to have the wheel go up and over.


http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/08190630-curiosity-wheel-damage.html

 

[sferrin]

somebody screwed up. End of story.

The screwup was in not predicting certain bizarre geology formations on the Martian surface:

No place we've ever been on Mars before has these kinds of embedded, pointy rocks. "To the layman, it all looks the same, but it's not," Erickson told me. "There is very hard rock that doesn't erode away uniformly. And you get ventifacts [wind-eroded pyramidal rocks] that are sharper than we'd like, and that are cemented into the ground. And so when you drive over them, they don't skitter out of the way, they don't get pressed into the sand, they just are something that you have to have the wheel go up and over.


http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/08190630-curiosity-wheel-damage.html

Fair enough.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://gizmodo.com/unlucky-kids-lost-their-school-projects-in-the-antares-1652507807

 

[Byeman]

]

Fair enough.

Yep, like I said some people are clueless and don't know all the facts to make such statements.

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001699118

 

[sferrin]

]

Fair enough.

Yep, like I said some people are clueless and don't know all the facts to make such statements.

And some people think NASA never makes mistakes. :

 

[fightingirish]

An another Russian engine might replace the AJ26.
Orbital Drops AJ-26 After Failure, Looking for Alternate Launcher to ISS

However, he declined to specify which engine will replace the AJ-26, repeating an earlier statement that Antares remains in contention for "a number of new launch contracts" that may ride on the engine choice. Russian news outlets have identified the new RD-193, kerosene-fueled engine as Orbital’s pick, and other possibilities include a single Russian RD-180, a solid-fuel rocket motor proposed by ATK, and even restarting production of the Russian NK-33 that is the basis for the AJ-26.

Link:
http://aviationweek.com/space/orbital-drops-aj-26-after-failure-looking-alternate-launcher-iss

 

[Michel Van]

Official Statement of OSC on that
https://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=1921

So they planned already in 2016 a replacement engine for Antares
Question what Engine is gonna replace the NK-33 ?
according this source OSC wanted single engine version of RD-180 with 3827 kN thrust
http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/35956orbital-sues-ula-seeks-rd-180-engines-515-million-in-damages

now with problems about Russia, it's unlikely that this version of RD-180 will be see under a Antares rocket...

 

[blackstar]

There's been a lot of bad reporting about this announcement, but the press release itself was poorly written.

They had planned on changing first stages anyway. That was reported months ago. They are going to continue using this engine for at least another year. All they have done is decided to replace it sooner than originally planned.

People have speculated that because they are linked up with ATK the next first stage will be a solid.

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2847350/Nasa-s-Antares-rocket-explosion-close-Amazing-new-footage-reveals-moment-200m-launch-vehicle-blew-pieces.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://aviationweek.com/space/antares-failure-review-still-weeks-away

Earlier story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/20/us-orbital-atk-gencorp-explosion-idUSKBN0LO28P20150220

 

[fredymac]

Well after about a year they're getting close to trying another launch. Here is the promo for the Cygnus cargo vehicle being prepared.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLek45Sag7I

 

[FighterJock]

Hopefully they will have better luck this time round. I will have my fingers crossed for them.