While they declared it a flawless launch for the press, those of us watching live saw a most unusual fail.

They had a pretty embarrassing anomaly from stage separation to end of the video feed. Instead of a rocket cam, they played a low-res animation of the flight, and then it went into an infinite error loop!

The voice over said “That is the wrong rocket.”

They were unable to stop the animation which showed the fairing opening over and over again, alternating with a flash of white light.

So they cut off the animation and switched the camera view to mission control, but you could still see the animation flashing on 10 of the screens in Houston, like a strobe light in their face.

Also, the first stage telemetry was displayed in feet and ft/sec^2, but then the second stage telemetry was in km and km/s. See below…

3 responses to “Orbital Sciences’ Antares Bizarre Launch Anomaly”

  1. Pretty launchScreen Shot 2014-07-13 at 9.52.50 AMBooster in feet:Screen Shot 2014-07-13 at 9.54.48 AMScreen Shot 2014-07-13 at 9.56.33 AMStage separation with blue cones showing the attitude adjustment for the solid second stage (light it once and pray, as us hobby rocketeers know). And a switch to metric km… Screen Shot 2014-07-13 at 9.56.51 AMLong after the booster disappeared from the scene… and it reappeared, perhaps for a fairing failure dance (a big problem from prior launches)Screen Shot 2014-07-13 at 9.58.19 AM 1Then the ID of "wrong rocket" (like the "wrong trousers" of Wallace & Gromit)…

  2. I nearly spat out my drink when he said "wrong rocket there".

  3. sounds hilarious..wish i saw it 🙂

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