Antares Is On Its Launch Pad
Orbital Rolls Out Antares Rocket to Launch Pad at Wallops Island For Upcoming Test Flight
“Early this morning, Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) rolled out the first fully integrated Antares(TM) rocket from its assembly building at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in eastern Virginia in preparation for its inaugural flight that is scheduled for April 17 at approximately 5:00 p.m. (EDT).”
It will be good to finally see this bird fly. A kerolox core and a solid sustainer makes Antares unique, as far as I know. I will be very interested to see how it performs.
The stages will probably work. It’s the payload fairing everyone will be watching – closely.
They never a definite cause for either of those failures, true?
Nor a remedial plan.
Lots of cameras!! Something
Now a regular fairing isn’t used with capsules, right? Are they using one in this test with the mock-up?
From a purely technical standpoint, a liquid propellant upper stage would have provided greater capability. But Orbital continues to survive by being scrappy and imaginative although they lack the capital to go “in house” and “clean sheet” like SpaceX.