New NASA Images of Wallops Rocket Explosion

A year ago in October, an Orbital Antares rocket was destroyed a few seconds after liftoff.

Procurement milestones listed online had anticipated that the contracts, known as Commercial Resupply Services 2, or CRS2, would be announced Thursday. The loss of two vehicles during the Space Shuttle program and development of new launch systems meant NASA executives had to factor Murphy’s Law into space station operations.

Orbital said the cause of the failure was most likely a manufacturing defect in a turbopump in one of the rocket’s two AJ-26 engines, a Soviet-era motor refurbished and resold by Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. If NASA selects Sierra Nevada or Boeing for the contract, then it will give the space agency a third rocket.

The first possibility is an inadequate design in the robustness of the AJ26 HBA and turbine-end bearing for the Antares rocket.

One of SpaceX’s strong points in the new competition is that it’s the only company offering US-made rockets, while Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada both rely to a few extent on rockets with Russian engines.

Meanwhile, Orbital-ATK designed the Cygnus spacecraft to be versatile enough to be launched from many launch vehicles and the aerospace firm has already selected the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 booster for this task. A Russian Progress cargo freighter launched on April 25, 2015 was damaged during launch, with ground controllers unable to stabilize the craft for safe operations. It could be worth as much as $14 billion to carry about 18 tons of supplies annually.

NASA has again delayed its awards of multi-billion dollar contracts to supply the global Space Station, now expected in January.

The cause of the explosion was a problem that occurred shortly after take-off, resulting in the flight termination officer triggering the self-destruct sequence to ensure it exploded in the safety of the launch zone, rather than over a residential area. Earlier the entire mission was government-funded. NASA is looking to have more than two cargo haulers because its global partners will be reducing the frequency of flying to the space station.