Orbital explosion probe said to find debris in engine: sources, Reuters “Last October’s explosion of Orbital ATK Inc’s Antares rocket may have been triggered when debris inadvertently left in a fuel tank traveled into the booster’s main engine, two people familiar with investigations into the accident told Reuters. The sources said the preliminary findings suggest that a simple assembly mistake by Orbital ATK could have caused the explosion, which destroyed […]

Before explosion, NASA knew aging Soviet engines posed risks, LA Times “Years before an unmanned rocket erupted in a fireball in October, NASA officials knew the metal in its 50-year-old Soviet-made engines could crack, causing fuel to leak and ignite, government documents show. As early as 2008, a NASA committee warned about the “substantial” risk of using the decades-old engines, and a fire during a 2011 engine test in Mississippi […]

40-Year-Old Russian Engine at Heart of Rocket Investigation “The thing to keep in mind in all this is that we don’t know what caused the mishap,” Cowing cautions. “We all saw the explosion at the bottom of the rocket, but that doesn’t mean anything. These investigations take time, and sometimes we don’t even end up with all the answers.” Did Soviet-era engines doom Antares?, Mad Science Innovation “Not that older […]