NASA posts new HQ photos of Antares blast

NASA has released high-quality photos on its Flickr account, more than a year after the Antares Rocket’s failed mission.

Over the past year an Independent Review Team from NASA along with another team from Orbital ATK, the company behind the rocket itself, have been digging deep to find answers.

Just this month a problem was pinpointed. Based on their analysis, the Independent Research Team determined that the proximate cause of the vehicle failure was an explosion within the  AJ26² rocket engine, which was installed in the Main Engine 1 position.

The reported cause of that explosion according to the research teams, was loss of rotor radial positioning– which resulted in contact between rotating components, sparking a fire.

See the high-quality photos here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/sets/72157648942817271