(WHTM) — On October 28, 2014, an Antares medium-lift rocket, carrying an automated Cygnus cargo spacecraft, blasted off from MARS (Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport) on a mission to resupply the International Space Station.

The flight lasted less than 30 seconds.

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About fifteen seconds after launch, the Antares malfunctioned, losing propulsion. It began to fall back onto the launch pad and the range safety officer initiated the kill sequence just before it hit. MARS suffered damage to its launch pad and Orbital Sciences Corporation, which built the Antares, suffered reputational damage.

The investigation began the next day. In October 2015, NASA released a final report, saying the most likely cause was a turbopump failure in one engine. Much interest has focused on the fact that the engines were remanufactured NK-33s, Russian engines built for Soviet moon rockets in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely believed that they had defects not detected and corrosion due to age.

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Orbital had signed numerous contracts with the former Soviet Union. The Antares was designed and built by a Ukrainian company, and the new engine chosen for the Antares after the accident was the Russian RD-181, very similar to the NK-33. With this engine, Orbital fulfilled the remainder of its contract with NASA to deliver supplies to the ISS.

Orbital joined Northrop Grumman in 2018.

Then in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Northrop Grumman announced in August of that year that an American company, Firefly Aerospace, would build the next generation of Antares rockets, including American-made engines. The next launch is expected in 2025.

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