Space News by Jeff Foust — October 26, 2019
A reusable suborbital sounding rocket launched by Exos Aerospace malfunctioned shortly after liftoff Oct. 26, causing the vehicle to crash back to Earth minutes later.
The Suborbital Autonomous Rocket with GuidancE, or SARGE, sounding rocket lifted off from Spaceport America in New Mexico at approximately 1:40 p.m. Eastern. The rocket cleared its launch pad smoothly, but seconds later appeared to suffer a loss of attitude control and wobble.
The rocket is designed to deploy parachutes to guide it back to a landing near the launch site. Instead, several pieces of debris were visible falling back to the ground, and the rocket body crashed near the launch pad nearly three and a half minutes after liftoff.
More:
https://spacenews.com/exos-aerospace-suborbital-launch-fails/
A dust cloud rises from the impact site of Exos Aerospace's SARGE rocket, which crashed minutes
after liftoff Oct. 26 from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Credit: Exos Aerospace webcast
