Orbital explosion probe said to find debris in engine: sources
Source: Reuters
Exclusive: Orbital explosion probe said to find debris in engine: sources
BY ANDREA SHALAL
WASHINGTON Fri Feb 20, 2015 4:33pm EST
(Reuters) - Last October's explosion of Orbital ATK Inc's Antares rocket may have been triggered when debris inadvertently left in a fuel tank traveled into the booster's main engine, two people familiar with investigations into the accident told Reuters.
The sources said the preliminary findings suggest that a simple assembly mistake by Orbital ATK could have caused the explosion, which destroyed a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.
Orbital initially linked the explosion to a problem with the turbo pump in one of the two Soviet-era NK-33 engines that power the rocket. GenCorp Inc's Aerojet Rocketdyne unit refurbishes the old motors and resells them as AJ-26 motors.
Orbital ATK on Friday acknowledged that so-called "foreign object debris" was one of more than a half dozen credible causes of the explosion, but said it was not "a leading candidate as the most probable cause of the failure."
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/20/us-orbital-atk-gencorp-explosion-idUSKBN0LO28P20150220
