Orbital's Cygnus capsule and Antares rocket Oct. 28, 2014, prior to failure at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility. Photo: NASA.
By Pat Host |
10 years ago |
11/04/2014

Orbital Sciences [ORB] on Monday announced the following individuals will comprise the Antares launch failure Accident Investigation Board (AIB), which is being led by Orbital under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The composition is as follows:

Chairman

* David Steffy, chief engineer of Orbital’s advanced programs group.

AIB Members

Orbital's Cygnus capsule and Antares rocket Oct. 28 prior to failure at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility. Photo: NASA.
Orbital’s Cygnus capsule and Antares rocket Oct. 28 prior to failure at NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility. Photo: NASA.

* David Swanson, senior director of safety and mission assurance for Orbital’s technical operations organization.

* Wayne Hale, director of human spaceflight at Special Aerospace Services consulting.

* David Cooper, member of Orbital’s independent readiness review team for the company’s launch systems group.

* Eric Wood, director of propulsion engineering for Orbital’s launch systems group.

* Tom Costello, launch vehicle assessment manager in the International Space Station (ISS) program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

* Matt Lacey, senior vehicle systems engineer for NASA’s launch services program.

FAA Oversight Team

* Michael Kelly, chief engineer, FAA office of commercial space transportation.

* Marcus Ward, mishap response coordinator, FAA office of commercial space transportation.

Orbital also said the AIB is initially focused on developing a “fault tree” and a timeline of the important events during the launch sequence. Due to the large amount of data available, the AIB is able to work with a rich source of information about the launch. One of the initial tasks for the AIB is to reconcile the data from multiple sources, a process that is now underway, to help crete the launch sequence timeline.

Over the weekend, Orbital’s Wallops Island, Va.,-based Antares personnel continued to identify, catalog and secure debris found at the launch site in order to preserve physical evidence and provide a record of the launch site following the Oct. 28 launch failure. The debris is being taken to a NASA facility on Wallops Island for secure and weather resistance storage. Wallops Island is home to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), where the launch failure occurred.

Orbital is hosting a conference call with financial analysts and investors at 8:30 a.m. EST Wednesday to discuss future plans for Antares and cargo deliveries for NASA.