NASA released an image that recorded the Antares missile explosion last year

The US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has just posted a high-resolution photo kit on Flickr, showing the worst moment of the national aviation science, when the rocket carries the spacecraft's train Orbitals Sciences broke up just a few seconds after leaving the launch pad. The images above record the entire "catastrophic" process of the Antares missile, launched from the Wallops Flight Facility (in Virginia) of NASA on October 28, 2014.

Photos of the rocket explosion Antares

At that time, Antares was carrying the Cygnus spacecraft , carrying food and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). The event is in the early stages of NASA's Commercial Commodity Program, an initiative aimed at delivering cargo to ISS for private companies. It is known that this unexpected incident occurred in Orbital's third batch to the space station. SpaceX (the space cargo transport company founded by Elon Musk) also pledged to NASA through a contract and also failed in the Falcon 9 rocket launch.

Up to now, there are quite a number of opinions about the causes of accidents. Both Orbital and NASA agree that there is an explosion at one of the engine's fuel pumps (turbopump). However, no one knew what caused the explosion. Orbital seems to think there has been a defect in the turbopump, derived from the way it operates. If so, the responsibility will belong to this parts manufacturer - Aerojet Rocketdyne. According to NASA, they said there might be a problem in engine design, or it is likely that it is not an engine fault. A strange object made of titanium and silicon was found in the engine, where the explosion occurred. It could be said that Orbital did not assemble missiles according to the original design.

Regardless of what caused the "death" of the Antares missile, Orbital Sciences Group also had its own alternative: replacing the Aerojet engine with a Russian-designed engine - NPO Energomash. Although the next version of Antares will not be released at least next year, Orbital still needs to perform four resupply missions for NASA until the end of 2016. Therefore, in the next two missions, the The company will use the Atlas V rocket (with Russian-made RD-180 engine) to bring its Cygnus cargo ship to ISS. It is expected that the first flight will be carried out on December 3.