Delay Saved NanoRacks Payload from Antares Failure, but Not Everyone Was So Lucky

摘要

Houston-based space services firm NanoRacks unknowingly dodged a bullet when it shifted a $10 million piece of equipment off the Antares rocket that exploded seconds after liftoff Oct. 28 from Wallops Island, Virginia. But other Antares' passengers were not so lucky, including a NanoRacks client that lost more than two dozen Earth-imaging cubesats in the mishap. Needing more time for testing, NanoRacks decided in October to wait for Orbital Sciences Corp.'s fourth paid cargo run to send its External Research Platform up to the international space station. That mission, dubbed Orb-4, had been slated for April 1,2015, but is now in doubt pending the investigation of the Orb-3 near-pad failure, which destroyed the Antares and a Cygnus resupply vehicle laden with space station cargo. NanoRacks' External Research Platform is roughly twice the size of a microwave oven and took about two years and $10 million to build under a contract with Astrium North America. NanoRacks markets the platform, equipped with a power supply for payloads that require it, as a means to test previously unflown space hardware, or conduct science experiments requiring exposure to space. "Our External Payload Platform has been scheduled to fly on Orb-4," NanoRacks spokeswoman Abby Dickes wrote in an Oct. 29 email. "NanoRacks needed additional time for flight verification testing, so we decided to play it safe and push the flight back."