(WHTM) -- On Oct. 28, 2014, an Antares medium-lift rocket, carrying a Cygnus automated cargo spacecraft, lifted off from MARS (Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport) on a mission to resupply the International Space Station.
The flight lasted less than 30 seconds.
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About fifteen seconds into the launch, the Antares malfunctioned, losing propulsion. It began falling back to the launch pad, and the Range Safety Officer triggered the destruct sequence just before it hit. MARS suffered damage to its launch pad, and Orbital Sciences Corporation, which built the Antares, suffered damage to its reputation.
The investigation started the next day. In October 2015 NASA released a final report, saying the most likely cause was a turbopump failure in an engine. A lot of interest centered on the fact the engines were refurbished NK-33s, Russian engines built for the Soviet moon rockets in the 1960s and 70s. It's widely believed they had undetected flaws and corrosion from age.
Orbital had contracted for a lot of work with the former Soviet Union. Antares was designed and built by a Ukrainian Company, and the new engine chosen for the Antares after the crash was the Russian RD-181, very similar to the NK-33. With that engine, Orbital fulfilled the rest of its contract with NASA to deliver supplies to the ISS.
Orbital became part of Northrop Grumman in 2018.
Then in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Northrop Grumman announced in August of that year that an American company, Firefly Aerospace, would build the next generation of Antares rockets - including American-made engines. The next launch is expected sometime in 2025.