Posted on 10/29/2014 8:04:58 PM PDT by BenLurkin
SAN MARINO (CBSLA.com) — When Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Antares rocket launch failed on Tuesday, two local students’ science experiment went down in flames as well.
Six seconds into Commercial Resupply Flight 3 (ORB-3), the Antares 130 rocket, commissioned by NASA from Orbital Sciences Corp. and carrying an unmanned spacecraft with 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station, suffered a failure, and exploded as it crashed back into Launch Pad 0A at Wallops Island, Virginia.
One of the experiments lost in the failure was developed by David Hengky and Nathaniel Rolfe, two seniors at San Marino High School.
“When it happened, I wasn’t sure I was seeing things right,” Rolfe said.
Hengky and Rolfe worked with their science teacher, Wyeth Collo, to develop an experiment that aimed to test and observe the exoskeleton development of houseflies in a microgravity environment.
“In zero gravity, does the exoskeleton of a fly, does it develop the same way,” Collo described of the experiment, which had won a spot on the ORB-3 mission through the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.
Despite the setback, Hengky and Rolfe say they are more determined than ever to get their experiment into orbit.
“As long as we gather all the materials, the different parts, we can set it up,” Rolfe said.
In order for that dream to be realized, however, the next commercial resupply mission will have to launch by Summer, 2015, while the two are still in high school.
ORB-3, which had been scheduled for a Monday launch but was scrubbed when a boat was discovered in 40 miles offshore in the danger zone, would have been the third of eight missions for Orbital Sciences under their contract with NASA.
The failed mission also marks the first attempt to use the Antares 130 rocket, which is more powerful than the standard Cygnus PCM.
That must be the explanation for why the reporters in the press viewing are were shrieking "oh my god" like little girls.
Now they know how Muzzies feel.
They probably got a $50,000,000 grant from NIH to run the experiment.
The dog ate your homework. Your homework blew up on a launch pad. Now I’ve heard it all
Heading east towards Cape Canaveral today I saw a rocket launch go up this afternoon. Heard nothig about it. Must have been one of them there secret ones ;)
I saw a vid where some beta male hipster was squealing like a huge human loss. Unreal.
My mother-in-law lives so close to the launch area that when it went down she thought is came down in her back yard. She said the one thing most don’t understand is that had it gone up another few seconds and thousand feet, then failed, it would have destroyed many houses on the island of Chincoteague. Many from Chincoteague were standing at the bottom of the island, watching the launch. I praise God that no one was injured or killed.
Yup.
Another view of the mishap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa6OQ_wNo7E
Half dozen kids from nearby Ocean City NJ. High School also lost an experiment - they even traveled to Virginia to watch the launch - sad......
same old monkey-crap type mission
that was the most frequent
payload of the space shuttle
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