A little over a year ago, NASA gave the kill signal to self-destruct its Antares rocket within fifteen seconds of liftoff. The 139-foot-tall rocket was intended to reach the ISS, carrying with it 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments, before some “catastrophic anomaly” misdirected its trajectory, forcing the two safety officers overseeing the launch to push the flight termination button. At the time of the accident, a grainy video was our sole inside scoop, but as of November 5, a handful of photos from the accident were posted on to NASA Flickr account without any explanation.
The high-resolution images are a harrowing sight to behold, depicting the massive level of destruction that results when a 270,000 kg spacecraft carrying 64,740 kg of rocket fuel explodes.
Something went extremely wrong and the misdirected rocket came tumbling back down toward the launch pad of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. At this point, it was decided that the least amount of damage could be incurred if the rocket self-destructed. To fulfill the task, NASA set off a pair of explosions equal to over 200 tons of TNT which promptly obliterated the rocket.
The resulting explosion amounted to $15 million worth of damage to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.
A forensic report released on October 9, 2015, concluded that the malfunction resulted from presence of a defect in the turbopump which may have been induced as a workmanship defect or from debris.
Source: Engadget
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