An Antares rocket, carrying scientific experiments and supplies to the International Space Station, exploded just a few seconds after liftoff today in Virginia, NASA said.
The spacecraft was unmanned, and no immediate reports of any injuries were made available. But still, the explosion is sure to bring criticism of the Commercial Resupply Services contract between NASA and Orbital Sciences Corporation.
The third cargo resupply mission was originally scheduled to be launched yesterday, but it was scrubbed because a boat was spotted downrange of the launch. Today’s mission lifted off at 6:22:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time and ended several seconds later, according to the Associated Press.
If the mission were successful, the Cygnus craft, which carried the payload, would have remained attached to the ISS for more than a month. The crew on board the ISS was scheduled to release the craft from the Harmony module on the ISS in December, but that was not to be.
Since the Space Shuttle was retired, NASA has been paying Orbital Sciences, which is based in Virginia, and SpaceX, based in California, to keep the ISS stocked.
Experiments on board Cygnus included those that would have
- Enabled the first space-based observations of meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere
- Helped determine how blood flows from the brain to the heart in the absence of gravity
- Investigated the impact of space travel on both the human immune system and an individual’s microbiome
- Collected microbes that live in and on the human body
The spacecraft would have been sent back to Earth upon detachment from the ISS, incinerating about 3,000 pounds of garbage as it burned up on re-entry.
Some student experiments blew up today
According to NASA, several students experiments were onboard Cygnus before it exploded: one to measure the growth of pea shoots in space and a group of experiments that investigated several questions, including how crystals grow in space and how milk spoils.
The pea shoot experiment originated at the Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Houston. Pea shoots grow so quickly on Earth, students said, and they can be harvested in two to four weeks.
Because of their high vitamin and mineral content, they’re potentially useful on long space flights, but before they can fulfill that purpose, students want to find the best combo of red and blue LED lights to use in the growth chamber.
Students would have been able to analyze the mineral and vitamin content of the plants, with support from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, or CASIS, if only the mission had gotten off the ground.
Another suite of experiments included 18 student-led investigations, NASA said, collectively known as the Yankee Clipper suite of research under the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP).
In the program, young scientists can conceive of, design, implement, and analyze scientific research questions in space. The studies investigate a range of topics from a crystal growth study that will enable students to learn more about how fluids act and form into crystals in the absence of gravity to how microgravity affects milk spoilage, NASA said.
The SSEP is an initiative of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in partnership with NanoRacks.
NASA’s resupply missions after the Space Shuttle
According to a press kit from NASA, the International Space Station is the cornerstone of NASA and the US strategy for human spaceflight and exploration of space. “The operations and research on board the space station and the agency’s work with US companies to deliver cargo to the orbital complex are indispensable parts of NASA’s integrated human exploration strategy to sending astronauts farther into the solar system,” NASA writes.
The second mission to deliver supplies and experiments to the ISS, Orbital CRS-2, was successful and ran from July 13 to Aug 17, 2014.
The Associated Press quoted NASA spokesman Rob Navias as saying there was nothing urgently needed by the space station crew onboard the Cygnus. In fact, the Russian Space Agency was proceeding with its own supply run on Wednesday, the AP reported.
Describe a procedure to determine the combination of red and blue LED light in a plant growth chamber to grow the most mineral-rich pea shoots. See Common Core English language arts literacy standard RST.11-12.1 for more information.
