Rocket Veered Off Course; Range Safety Personnel Destroyed Rocket When It Reached Safety-Area Limit; Unconfirmed Report Civilian Saw Rocket Debris On Land

NASA Hypersonic Experiments Were Aboard Failed Rocket, Representing $17 Million Loss When Rocket Destroyed

An Alliant Techsystems Inc. [ATK] first-of-a-kind ALV-X1 rocket veered off course after launching Friday at the NASA Wallops Island, Va., facility, forcing range safety personnel to hit the destruct button after 27 seconds of flight so the rocket disintegrated.

If reports are confirmed that some rocket debris hit land areas instead of falling into the ocean, that could bolster those who argue that private companies should base their launch operations in Florida, near Kennedy Space Center, rather than at Wallops.

Some Florida members of Congress would prefer the business in the Sunshine State, which is about to lose thousands of space-related jobs.

That rocket malfunction caused destruction of two NASA hypersonic experimental payloads aboard the rocket, a $17 million total loss that was comprised of $11 million for the payloads and the rest in costs of flight preparations and the like, briefers said.

ATK declined to place a dollar value on the loss of the unique, one-of-a-kind sounding rocket, terming that discretionary information.

NASA and ATK personnel provided an overview of the failure in a telephone conference with journalists.

Those delivering the briefing included Juan Alonso, director of the NASA fundamental aeronautics program office; Kent Rominger, ATK vice president of advanced programs and former chief of the NASA astronaut corps; Beth Dickey, with NASA headquarters in Washington; and Keith Koehler, with the NASA Wallops Flight Facility.

At first, Rominger said, the 5:10 a.m. ET liftoff in darkness appeared to be a clean launch, following a countdown in which crews were working no issues and all seemed to be nominal.

But after launch and a pitch-over that the rocket was intended to execute, it continued to veer over and headed south, reaching about 11,000 to 12,000 feet altitude before the destruct command was issued.

When the vehicle passed a safety-zone line, controllers pushed the destruct button.

"We do not know" why the "prototype" rocket veered off course, something teams of experts are attempting to determine, Rominger said. For ATK as a company, "I would call it a big disappointment."

While NASA leaders believe most rocket debris fell into the Atlantic Ocean, there were unconfirmed reports that civilians spotted debris fragments on land at Assawoman Bay, near the Maryland-Delaware state line.

NASA warned that if anyone spots debris, it might be hazardous, requesting the public not to touch it and instead to call the Wallops Emergency Operations Center at 757-824- 1300 to report any finding.

When the destruct command was issued, the second stage hadn’t yet fired. Propellant remaining in the rocket at the destruct point would have ignited and burned in the destruct operation, briefers said.

"We are very disappointed," Dickey said. The space agency will supply a consultant to aid ATK in determining the cause of the failure, she added.

Lost in the abort decision were the NASA Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition, or HYBOLT, and the Sub-Orbital Aerodynamic Re-entry Experiment, or SOAREX.

The 55-foot tall ALV-X1 rocket was supposed to fly about 1,000 miles downrange, southeast of Wallops, where both it and the two experiments would have fallen into the ocean.

NASA has attempted to foster commercial launch operations, ranging from limited vehicles such as the ALV-X1 suborbital lifter to space transport vehicles that could perform logistics services to the International Space Station. Eventually, commercial companies might even provide crew-carrying capabilities for the station.

The space agency needs such services because it won’t have the capability to take even one astronaut to low Earth orbit for half a decade, from 2010 when the space shuttle fleet is mandated to retire, to 2015 when the first manned flight of the Orion-Ares next-generation U.S. spaceship system is planned.

When the shuttle fleet retires, Central Florida will lose thousands of shuttle-related jobs, positions that won’t return when Orion-Ares begins flying, because it is a smaller, simpler platform. That employment crisis is why some Florida lawmakers wish to see commercial firms such as ATK conduct their launches in Florida, rather than at Wallops, the West Coast, spaceports in the Southwest or overseas.