Cygnus cargo truck on its way, and funding to 2024: Space Station is back in the game Orbital Sciences is just days from becoming the second private company to ship supplies to the International Space Station. Today the biz successfully launched its Cygnus space truck, putting the cargo craft into orbit. The team used one of their two-stage Antares rockets to propel the space mule to a 17,500mph cruising …
You are a bit too quick to cheer up here. The rocket uses a finite engine supply that is no loger manufactured - refurbished and retrofitted with modern US electronics russian 1960-es (yes, 60-es) rocket engines. If memory serves me right these were preserved in a warehouse somewhere in the middle of nowhere as a result of sheer luck (someone lost the order for their scrapping many years ago).
You can still see the original russian markings on the engine on the pic: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Aerojet_AJ26_Rocket_Engine_Arrives_at_Stennis.jpg (HK is NK in cyrillic, rest is model code and serial number).
I have yet to see Orbital sciences answer the fairly obvious question - what are they going to do after the supply runs out.
What Voland said. I'm really not sure what they are going to do although they have enough engines for quite a few launches. I can only guess they are either in talks with someone or are designing their own in house. But what I haven't yet heard.
SpaceX have a real advantage here with designing and manufacturing their own engines, and going for many small ones rather than a couple of large ones. Fnarr.
After minor checking up...
"Aerojet has agreed to recondition sufficient NK-33s to serve Orbital's 16 flight NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract. Beyond that, it has a stockpile of 23 1960s/70s era engines. Kuznetsov no longer manufactures the engine, and the lack of a continuing supplier brings into question the long-term viability of Antares. To address this, Orbital has sought to buy RD-180 engines, but maker NPO Energomash's contract with United Launch Alliance prevents this. Orbital has sued ULA for this, alleging anti-trust violations.[17] Aerojet has offered to work with Kuznetsov to restart production of new NK-33 engines, to assure Orbital of an ongoing supply.[18]"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJ-26.
Yes, I noticed the same thing. I've been watching rockets lift off for 50 years and never saw one shift over like this one did right at liftoff. In the video, it alarmingly crabbed over to the left right after it left the base. Like something was holding it back, or it was somehow unbalanced. I also thought it was quickly going to start going sideways, or hit the tower equipment and begin the end of a very bad day. What happened?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
