NASA Holds News Conference Following Orbital Launch Mishap

NASA held a news conference Tuesday October 28 following the mishap that occurred at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during the attempted launch of Orbital Sciences Corp’s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. Briefing participants were, Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, Frank Culbertson, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Advanced Programs Group at Orbital Sciences Corp, Bill Wrobel, director of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, and Mike Suffredini, NASA’s International Space Station Program Manager.

[thehandlesticks]

Now this is accountability! Not one other federal service launches a huge conference the night of some huge happening, always one rep in a solo press event not answering anything directly or with experience the next day. These guys admit their mistakes and want to learn from and prevent them. So many could learn.

[AlexTheEpicHD]

I'm glad there wasn't any critical cargo on the craft. I'm equally glad that there wasn't anyone onboard at the time.

Still, I hate it when any ship, manned or otherwise, is destroyed. It sets us on Earth back just a tiny bit more.

[DavidODuvall]

These things happen.  When we fall, we get back up and we learn from our mistakes.  It's heartbreaking but, it's minor compared to our past space program fails.  Thank God no one was hurt. 

[diegorodrigues]

When NASA make a mistake they just try again. However, when a private company makes the same mistake is a lot much worse.

[thirdphaseofmoon]

Is The Public Safe? Why Did It Happen? Thirdphaseofmoon Want's to know...

[elgroxo]

As a Kerbal Engineer I still dont know what when wrong with the mission, it looked nominal to me.

[benjaminheckenberg]

Thank you for taking the time to address the public on what has occurred and what you know so far.
We do value your responses, It provides us with an insight to the complexity of this process.

[hhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnngh]

I was launching a new station part when this happened. And they both blew up at the same time...

[shadelz]

This cleared up a few questions I had. Hopefully they can figure out what went wrong and capitalize as fast as possible.

[juliansuse]

I hope they upload the raw footage of this launch, it looked quite impressive in the news!

[lizielamagsila]

should have given elon musk space x larger share if NASA contract since their rocket is tested and advance rather than relying on this russian technology use by this company..

[brianscottsparks]

It could lift a train.I rebuilt the piston pumps at llorell space in Sunnyvale CA to simulate the vacuum of space to test their 48 million dollar communication satellites and space has enough vacuum to suck the ocean up

[cpjufzz]

Very Sad Day.
I hope this will not impact on the companies too much, also on the companies of the payload.

I like the Antares, but the Rocket looks so weak on the Pad...
1 Sec. after the ignition the rocket got really hard vibration and it looks like its on fire above the booster specially on one side there is a flare/torch stabilizer? and it looks like its exploding everytime then after 2-3 Sec. the rocket is off the pad and looking great again. 

I hope you figure out what´s wrong, good luck to everyone, lets make the next launch a success.

[millionsteve]

No doubt probably something some engineer before the launch was trying to tell management about but they were ignored.

[hiphopobenzema]

You really have to applaud Orbital for their response.

[ervin]

She said "Good Eveveing" at the start of the video lol.

[NexTsTovas]

Is there any footage of that _mishap_? I'd like to see it, thanks!

[HeavyMetals]

I have already done video comparison with other Antares launches, There was excess venting right before launch. CAM 23 shows viewable venting before ignition.  This was an unfortunate event that happened to quickly to avoid. 

[Midway.]

What fuel is used for these engines, original from Russia or locally ?

[JazzKeyboardist]

Will this make NASA's unexplained files on the science channel  ?