The company behind a resupply mission to the International Space Station that ended in a spectacular explosion over a Virginia launchpad has defended the use of ageing Soviet rockets amid growing questions over Nasa’s reliance on private contractors to fill gaps in the US space program.
Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, ranging from "classified cryptographic" gear to school science experiments, was destroyed in a giant fireball on Tuesday evening after technicians detonated a self-destruct mechanism six seconds after launch because of a "catastrophic" equipment failure.
Though stressing the exact cause of the failure was unknown, an executive at Orbital lamented the lack of more modern alternatives to its rocket engines, which were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the failed aim of putting Soviet cosmonauts on the moon.
"When you look at it there are not many other options around the world in terms of using power plants of this size, certainly not in this country, unfortunately," Frank Culbertson, Orbital’s executive vice-president, said after the crash.
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