rocket technology has advanced rapidly over the last 60 years and in that time it is estimated
that over 35 000 rockets have been sent to space but with such rapid innovation you're bound to
have some accidents space organizations spend years making sure everything is correct however
a single error can cause those years of work to go down the drain in a matter of seconds from
the united states all the way to china here are five rocket launches that went horribly wrong
in october of 2014 nasa was set to launch an unmanned antares rocket off the virginia
coast the goal was simple to deliver goods to the international space station
something that had been done many many times before unfortunately things took a different
turn that day when the launch began it was business as usual but that didn't last for long
an investigation into why the rocket failed soon followed a year later a report came out detailing
how there was an explosion within the rocket's liquid oxygen turbo pump in one of the two
aj26 engines this caused the rocket to lose its thrust and come crashing back
so close to the launch pad the explosion was triggered when stationary and
rotating parts within the turbo pump came into contact with one another the excessive amount
of friction that was generated led to the ensuing fire however the report could not
figure out what caused the issue in the turbo pump in the first place investigators narrowed
it down to three potential issues or perhaps some kind of combination of the three it's
possible the explosion occurred as a result of inadequate design robustness of the engine itself
which made it more susceptible to oxygen fires it's also possible a debris such as titanium or
silica got into the engine finally there could have been a manufacturing defect within the engine
investigators could not say for certain exactly what caused this disaster
luckily no one was harmed in this launch on july 1st of 2013 a russian rocket was set to take off
however things quickly went askew when the rocket began to veer off course
you can see in the video how significantly it's skewing to the side which can only mean disaster
it didn't take long for the rocket to begin
breaking apart before falling back to earth and exploding
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findings from later found that the failure was likely due to an emergency shutdown of
the boosters engines and about 17 seconds into takeoff luckily the rocket was unmanned but it
was carrying 600 tons of highly toxic kerosene ammo and heptyl fuel which were spilled all over
the surrounding area while the fuel did give off a poisonous smoke it was partly contained thanks to
nearby rain at the launch site unfortunately the people of baikonur a town about 36 miles away from
the launch were still in harm's way an alert went out telling them to stay inside with the windows
closed until further notice the rocket was insured for 6 billion rubles which comes out to about 182
million american dollars the failure came on the heels of a slew of rocket launch mishaps
to occur in russia three satellites were lost in december of 2010 when a different proton rocket
also failed during a launch after this particular incident all proton rockets had to be grounded for
months until a detailed investigation could be carried out to try to prevent future disasters
on january 17 1997 a rocket that went by gps iir-1 was set to be the first block iir gps
satellite to set flight it was supposed to operate as a component of the united
states air force global positioning system but it blew apart only 13 seconds after it
took off you can see how quickly things go from exciting to devastating in one humongous blast
the rocket took off from cape canaveral it was found that the rocket's flight termination system
was activated via its on-board computer this detonated the explosive charges located around
the rocket causing it to go up in flames when it exploded the rocket was roughly 1 600 feet in the
air making it the lowest altitude explosion to occur at cape canaveral since the atlas centaur
ac5 disaster in 1965. later an investigation found that the failure was due to a crack in the casing
of the number two solid rocket motor this crack began to form at t plus six seconds and it only
got worse from there at t plus 12 seconds the srb casing finally ruptured resulting in debris
getting stuck at the number eight srb right next to it that led to the motor failing and at that
point there was no hope of salvaging the mission a manual destruct command was set to terminate
the launch for safety reasons residents of the surrounding area were advised to stay inside and
keep their windows closed because vapors from the rocket could be toxic or irritating the impact was
still felt in the nearby town some damage to store windows were reported as much as 10 miles away
from the launch site but buildings can be repaired luckily nobody was killed from this incident
the vanguard tv3 was the united states first attempt to get a satellite into orbit around
the planet the world saw several successful soviet launches with sputnik 1 and 2 so the
united states designed the vanguard tv-3 this was a small satellite made to test the launch
abilities of the three-stage vanguard and study the effects of the earth's orbit on the vessel
it was also meant to obtain geodetic measurements through the orbits analysis
the key words in that last sentence are meant to the launch was set to take place on december 6th
1957 and just two seconds after liftoff the rocket began to lose thrust it fell back to
earth onto its launch pad as it settled back onto the ground the fuel tanks ruptured and
subsequently exploded the rocket was destroyed and the launch pad sustained extreme damage
there were a number of failures during the year and the united states promptly announced them
the first and most spectacular of these was vanguard at the end of 1957. there were other
vanguard failures all achieved takeoff but trouble occurred either in the second or third stages
an investigation ensued but they could not determine the precise cause of the accident
it's believed that the fuel system malfunctioned in some way
after the incident the satellite was too badly damaged to be salvaged
however it went on to be displayed in the national air and space museum in the smithsonian
on february 15 1996 a satellite called intelsat 708 was supposed to be launched
from the xichang satellite launch center in china however the satellite itself was
built by the american company space systems laurel you can see the rocket take off and
immediately you know something is wrong because it's heading in the complete wrong direction
later in the video you see the rocket transforming into a fireball before crashing back to the ground
the rocket ended up crashing in a nearby village where six people lost their lives according to
a chinese report however estimates that came out of america suggest that the number could be much
higher a video crew later went to the village where many buildings were completely destroyed
an investigation took place afterward which determined that there was a failure within the
rockets guidance system the investigation forced the long march rock program to greatly improve
its reliability the program did not experience another failure until 2011 however the parties
involved with the disaster did not get out of it unscathed the investigation led to a huge
political controversy in the united states the u.s government conducted its own investigation
which found that information from the report had been given illegally to china
space systems laurel had to pay 20 million dollars to settle charges of violating export controls
rocket launches are necessary to support our modern way of living
however all the time and money put into them can't always ensure they'll go off without a hitch all
space organizations can do is learn from these mistakes and try to make sure future disasters
don't have a chance to happen be sure to click the link on screen to check out five ship launches
that went horribly wrong as always thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one