Washington, October 29 (EFE) .- The explosion of a rocket from Orbital Sciences Corporation, with material the International Space Station (ISS), is the first trip to NASA’s policy of hiring private companies for such missions, but not the end of an enhanced collaboration in recent years.
This is the first failed launch of the program of commercial flights to transport cargo to the ISS, but experts say it will not affect cooperation with the space agency US .
The event without victims, left a very impressive by the fireball caused the explosion picture, but “accidents, especially in the initial stages of any program, can happen,” he told Efe Sydney Do, member of the Engineering Research Strategic MIT (MIT).
Although he considered that there will be damage to the image of the company, Do emphasized the difficulties and risks involved in spaceflight, but “fortunately, was an unmanned flight, there was nothing valuable and essential in terms of logistics to the ISS,” in this case, he added.
A Antares Orbital Sciences rocket carrying an unmanned Cygnus spacecraft with more than 2 tons of cargo and experiments Tuesday exploded seconds after launch from NASA facility at Wallops Island Virginia .
The company has opened an investigation, which will have the support of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA, to find the bug that caused the explosion and “prevent an incident recurrence like this,” said in a statement Frank Culbertson, executive vice president of the company.
Do said the company will find out the cause, “he corrected the mistakes and learn from them,” and was convinced that it will be a learning experience for all industry.
“The more we fly, we gain more experience and the entire industry learns from those mistakes,” said the expert from MIT, who looked back to the beginning of commercial aviation, in which ” There were many accidents and learn from them. “
NASA, which has turned to the private sector after completing in 2011 the shuttle program to send cargo and, in future, also crew on the space station has emphasized maintaining confidence in the private sector, which is forging an alliance for decades.
The deputy head of the Directorate of Operations and the NASA Human Exploration, William Gerstenmaier, said in a statement that the accident “we will not be deterred in our efforts to expand our already successful ability to send cargo from US soil to the ISS.”
Orbital Sciences has a contract with NASA 1.500 million to make eight missions of supply.
Its competitor, SpaceX, created by the founder of the electronic payment system PayPal , has also won a contract for 1,260 million euros twelve missions with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.
The director of the Federation of Commercial Spaceflight, Eric Stallmer, “was a slip, but a slip of you get up, you shake your knees and continue the race because I really it worthwhile, “he said in remarks to Efe
Stallmer reminded that there is an inherent risk in the release.” This is not the first and not the last, but I think it will have a major impact on the direction it is taking NASA “whose goal is to send a manned mission to Mars in 2030.
The fact that private industry to take these trips to low-Earth orbit, which The space agency has done for decades, allows NASA to “focus on the core mission for which it was designed, extending the boundaries of exploration,” said Stallmer.
(EFE)
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