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Space industry giants Orbital upbeat ahead of Antares debut
by
Chris Bergin
on 22 Feb, 2012 17:42
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#1
by
Chris Bergin
on 22 Feb, 2012 17:51
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#2
by
Martin FL
on 22 Feb, 2012 19:30
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Great read Chris! Easy to forget Orbital are involved in so much hardware.
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#3
by
FinalFrontier
on 22 Feb, 2012 19:33
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Great Article Chris!
So it looks like July eh? Interesting.
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#4
by
Gary NASA
on 22 Feb, 2012 20:18
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Very reliable company. Good to see a fair and interesting article on them!
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#5
by
Jim
on 22 Feb, 2012 20:26
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Very reliable company. Good to see a fair and interesting article on them!
Three words. Taurus success rate
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#6
by
Chris Bergin
on 22 Feb, 2012 21:19
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Thanks guys.
Very reliable company. Good to see a fair and interesting article on them!
Yeah, for the amount of things they do, they are highly successful. It's funny how many times we start writing up a launch article and the satellite is one from Orbital.
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#7
by
tigerade
on 22 Feb, 2012 21:41
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Very reliable company. Good to see a fair and interesting article on them!
Three words. Taurus success rate
Tried to google what the success rate was, but no dice. I know about the failures of OCO and GLORY. But what kind of success rate are we looking at here in % terms? And is that better or worse than average?
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#8
by
Jim
on 22 Feb, 2012 21:52
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66%
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#9
by
Prober
on 22 Feb, 2012 22:36
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66%
Well let's just hope this "new" launcher is a winner with a better success rate. Do expect problems, but we do need a winner.
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#10
by
spectre9
on 22 Feb, 2012 22:43
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Nothing about payloads fairings in the article?
I guess don't want to prod them in a sore spot but I would like assurances about the fairing on the Antares.
I like how they have lots of tanks and lots of engines all stacked up and ready to fly as soon as they can. That story seems to be familiar.
Great article Chris really enjoyed it.
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#11
by
tigerade
on 22 Feb, 2012 22:59
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66%
Wouldn't be a passing grade in most college courses. Cant imagine the space industry being any more forgiving. But this Antares is a new launcher so they have a chance to start from scratch here. I don't understand the lack of scrutiny of Orbital though. Both they and SpX have COTS/CRS contracts but everyone criticizes SpaceX. In reality, SpaceX launched 2 years ago and Orbital is still yet to launch this rocket.
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#12
by
marsman2020
on 22 Feb, 2012 23:03
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I'm really glad they are upbeat, after putting $700 million of taxpayer hardware into the ocean and getting paid ~$125 million to do it (on top of getting paid to build the hardware they put into the ocean, *and* getting paid to build the replacement hardware after they did it).
Maybe they will do more then 3 non-flight-like tests on the payload fairing frangible joints for Antares (3 tests of a pyrotechnic device = 36% reliability on a 95% confidence interval)... Or maybe they will claim "flight worthy" (not qualified..."worthy") heritage to tests done 15 years ago and not do any tests at all. Maybe they will ignore the frangible joint vendors recommendation that additional qualification tests be performed... Or maybe they won't. Who knows.
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#13
by
Jason1701
on 23 Feb, 2012 00:06
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I don't understand the lack of scrutiny of Orbital though. Both they and SpX have COTS/CRS contracts but everyone criticizes SpaceX. In reality, SpaceX launched 2 years ago and Orbital is still yet to launch this rocket.
I think it's because Orbital stays quiet in the media, whereas SpaceX is always announcing grandiose new plans. People also pay more attention to SpaceX because they're a more exciting company - their paramount goal is to make a difference in space, not to make the maximum profit. All this attention naturally leads to more criticism, such as the "Smoke and Fire" ad that was directed exclusively at SpaceX.
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#14
by
Antares
on 23 Feb, 2012 00:07
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Methinks marsman'ty doth protest too much. (had to keep it in iambic pentameter)
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#15
by
QuantumG
on 23 Feb, 2012 00:08
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The impetuous young are almost always more exciting than the wizened.
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#16
by
Chris Bergin
on 23 Feb, 2012 00:50
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Nothing about payloads fairings in the article?
I guess don't want to prod them in a sore spot but I would like assurances about the fairing on the Antares.
I like how they have lots of tanks and lots of engines all stacked up and ready to fly as soon as they can. That story seems to be familiar.
Great article Chris really enjoyed it.
Wouldn't of fitted the flow of the article. I did find a way to note the two well known fails, but no point lingering on that. The article was a "these lot get put into the nu-space folder, but they are established space. Look, they do a lot of things" angle.
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#17
by
spectre9
on 23 Feb, 2012 01:26
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Don't worry Chris I'm not trying to accuse you of writing a fluff piece.
I thought it was very fair all around and Orbital deserve the coverage.
They really do seem to be working hard to redeem themselves and want to distance themselves from the name "Taurus"
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#18
by
STS Tony
on 23 Feb, 2012 03:26
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Great read! I also didn't know they were that busy. I knew they also made satellites but sounding rockets and that many missions....interesting and cool.
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#19
by
Chris Bergin
on 24 Feb, 2012 13:55
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Orbital must have liked it as they retweeted it.
(I'm no major fan of twitter, but when NASA or a company retweet an article we've written on them, it's a big deal
