Hopefully this will not set back Orbital's schedule too much.This - and SpaceX's delays - is why it is so important to have two contracted cargo delivery services.
Quote from: Lars_J on 05/22/2014 10:46 pmHopefully this will not set back Orbital's schedule too much.This - and SpaceX's delays - is why it is so important to have two contracted cargo delivery services.Hopefully Congress in its not-so-infinite wisdom learns from this and lets NASA continue with having at least two CC providers...~Jon
Latest rev of the article, with confirmation from Aeroject Rocketdyne:http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/05/antares-aj-26-engine-fails-stennis-testing/Importantly, no one was injured.
I assume this will expedite a decision on possibly using an ATK (Dark Knight based?) solid for S1?
Quote from: docmordrid on 05/23/2014 05:16 pmI assume this will expedite a decision on possibly using an ATK (Dark Knight based?) solid for S1? Orbital already knows that it has to replace NK-33 with something after 2016 or thereabouts. That something could be RD-181 or solids or something else. This test failure doesn't change anything in that regard. - Ed Kyle
It would be interesting to see how much damage the test stand received during this failure.Any chance NASA might release some photo's of the E stand once the engine (sensitive hardware) has been removed?-MG
Quote from: edkyle99 on 05/23/2014 06:11 pmQuote from: docmordrid on 05/23/2014 05:16 pmI assume this will expedite a decision on possibly using an ATK (Dark Knight based?) solid for S1? Orbital already knows that it has to replace NK-33 with something after 2016 or thereabouts. That something could be RD-181 or solids or something else. This test failure doesn't change anything in that regard. - Ed Kyle Assuming the engine cannot be repaired, and Orbital/ATK would like continual service to ISS, it moves the deadline closer by a few months.