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Antares Rocket Launch Scrubbed
An anonymous reader writes "This evening's planned launch of the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket had to be canceled just 12 minutes before liftoff, due to the unexpected separation of the booster's umbilical cable while the vehicle was on the launch pad. This is the first attempt to fly the Antares rocket, which is a commercial craft and direct competitor to the SpaceX Dragon 9. Beyond being the first flight of a brand new commercial rocket, this mission is also notable for carrying three of NASA's PhoneSats; small satellites powered by Android running on Nexus smartphones. With each PhoneSat costing just $3,500, they're designed to test the limits of extremely low cost spacecraft, similar to the European STRaND-1 mission. Since this is simply an orbital test, and the Antares will not be attempting to dock with the International Space Station, the launch window is highly flexible. It's anticipated Orbital Sciences will make another attempt at launching the Antares within 48 hours."
Wow! Antares is 470 light years away. Private space companies are advancing faster than I thought.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The last thing we need to do is antagonize the Antarans. We don't even have planetary missile bases yet.
I think that whoever wrote that meant that they are controlled sell Nexus smartphones.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
"Of course, the phones won’t exactly resemble their Earth-bound brethren while in space. To save weight, the screens and cases will be removed from the phones, and their batteries will be replaced with more appropriate power systems."
http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/08/can-android-revolutionize-spacecraft-design/
>unexpected separation of the booster's umbilical cable
I hate it when that happens.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
All this goes to prove is that no spelling checker will catch the wrong word spelled correctly.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
The Kerbals would've launched anyway. It would've been *glorious*.
it was a spontaneous abortion - the umbilical came off
but I heard that if you go horseback riding...
That's something you should use you're eyes and brain four
SpaceX FALCON 9 rocket!!! The Dragon capsule is just what goes on top.
Celeste?
I used to be
"Causes of the failure
Investigation revealed that the Redstone's engine shutdown was caused by two of its electrical cables separating in the wrong order.[6] These cables were a control cable, which provided various control signals, and a power cable, which provided electrical power and grounding. Both cables were plugged into the rocket at the bottom edge of one of its tail fins and would separate at liftoff.[10] The control cable was supposed to separate first, followed by the power cable. However, for this launch, the control cable was longer than expected—it was one designed for the military Redstone missile rather than the shorter cable designed for Mercury-Redstone. This control cable had been clamped to compensate for its greater length, but when the vehicle lifted off, the clamping did not work as planned and the control cable separation was delayed, eventually occurring about 29 milliseconds after the power cable had separated.[4][11]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1
Before it gets messy.
This is similar to IT - when a user finds a bug in testing, that's a GOOD thing: it means it's not going to production like that.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Actually, I think they are referring to small experimental satellites that are piggybacking on the main mission. They are small 4" square cubes powered by off the shelf components and smartphone parts. http://www.phonesat.org/
In most cases this will hasten Kessler Syndrome.
hey, everybody, look - a pissed-off government worker who can't stand that SpaceX can get the job done for 20% of the cost of NASA.
I'm old enough to remember Sally Ride talking about the plan for a moon base by 2010 and George the smarter committing to a 2017 Mars landing. The government has failed to execute.
Elon Musk is planning to retire on Mars and it looks like he will.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Also:
http://phonesat.org/packets.php
http://open.nasa.gov/plan/phonesat/
More details at both. I'm thinking it'll be fun to catch some of the packets as they fly by.
Well, for starters come up with a better alternative. Right now, these companies are the only game in town.
This is why I liek being dislexic. You just read whats there, get the maeaning from the text and move on. Must be such a stress for the pedantic people to be like that all day long. erghh
Yeppers, kinda hard to hide your age when you're a member of the 4 digit Id club (close to site founding in 1997 or 16 years ago). Even us 5 digiters are pretty creaky.
Dyslexics of the world, Untie!
Yes, ignore the fixed costs of the vehicle development and your math works out fine. I can pull the NASA administrator's quote about SpaceX being able to deliver for 20% of NASA's cost if you insist.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)