Exceeded Design Margins


It has some people wondering.

He said he could not guess how long it will take to determine the cause of the accident and to make repairs. Culbertson said the company carried insurance on the mission, which he valued at more than $200 million, not counting repair costs.

He stressed that it was too soon to know whether the Russian-built engines, modified for the Antares and extensively tested, were to blame.

“We will understand what happened — hopefully soon — and we’ll get things back on track,” Culbertson assured his devastated team. “We’ve all seen this happen in our business before, and we’ve all seen the teams recover from this, and we will do the same.”


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6 responses to “Exceeded Design Margins”

  1. Captain Ned Avatar
    Captain Ned

    Well, it’s going to take a few months to rebuild the pad after the wreckage landed on it and exploded, so they’ll have plenty of time for the failure analysis.

  2. agimarc Avatar

    Orbital has a lot of experience with solids; liquids not so much. This is how you get experience in Aerospace. And they will keep on getting better at what they are doing. Cheers –

  3. captain arizona Avatar
    captain arizona

    you get what you pay for.

  4. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    …to soon to know whether the Russian-built engines, modified for the Antares and extensively tested, were to blame.

    Uh huh.

  5. Drake Avatar
    Drake

    You don’t think they can just buff that out?

  6. mysterian Avatar
    mysterian

    It looks like either the fuel line or the fuel turbopump ruptured – note the uncontained flames just before the explosion. Then the overlean mixture detonated in the combustion chamber – note the exhaust brightening significantly just before the explosion.