Little OT: The US media coverage (especially CNN) is absolutely dreadful of this. CNN is carrying the story as "rocket with classified equipment explodes." So p*ssed that I had to turn off the television.
As for the explosion, I find it ironic that this rocket, which used engines which were essentially clones of Soviet N1 engines, failed in a similar manner as the N1-5L disaster.
Little OT: The US media coverage (especially CNN) is absolutely dreadful of this. CNN is carrying the story as "rocket with classified equipment explodes." So p*ssed that I had to turn off the television.
The classified items were specified as cryptographic in nature meaning something like GPS or COMSEC hardware. GPS despite its wide-spread usage in the civilian sector, is a military project run by the USAF.1. I don't know.
2. Whether or not NASA does, it has already been posted to YouTube.
3. I did not know that... maybe a classified mission a la early Space Shuttle DoD missions?
As for the explosion, I find it ironic that this rocket, which used engines which were essentially clones of Soviet N1 engines, failed in a similar manner as the N1-5L disaster.
The classified items were specified as cryptographic in nature meaning something like GPS or COMSEC hardware. GPS despite its wide-spread usage in the civilian sector, is a military project run by the USAF.
Every launch vehicle will eventually suffer something like this. It has nothing to do with the contractor.Part of me is happy that NASA hasn't selected orbital sciences for astronaut launches. Do SpaceX and Boeing have better quality spacecraft and launchers? We don't want any of our astronauts to suffer the same fate as Cygnus.
We don't want any of our astronauts to suffer the same fate as Cygnus.
Every launch vehicle will eventually suffer something like this. It has nothing to do with the contractor.
Looks like a combustion chamber or turbopump catastrophic failure...
They did try to stop it but got bullied into GO recommendation by two NASA centers, MSFC and KSC. In fact, MSFC knew about the fallibility of the seals back in 1983 but it got buried and the criticality rating changed from CRIT 1 to CRIT 1R meaning it had redundancy.I wouldn't go that far. Remember Morton Thyocol knew about the O rings.
1) there's a vent valve that is pulsing just after liftoff... tank overpressurization? (could be nominal)
Now running 30 of those engines at the same time in 1970 is one thing, running 2 of them in 2014 is another...
They did try to stop it but got bullied into GO recommendation by two NASA centers, MSFC and KSC. In fact, MSFC knew about the fallibility of the seals back in 1983 but it got buried and the criticality rating changed from CRIT 1 to CRIT 1R meaning it had redundancy.