It’s unlikely that the boat which delayed the launch of the Antares rocket launch at the Wallops Flight Facility last Monday will be fined.
Just before the launch the mission was scrubbed because a 26-foot sail boat was inside the safety zone.
Orbital Sciences said that it is not possible to say how much the delay cost but the company said, “It would not have been cheap.”
The rocket was carrying Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft that carried 5-thousand pounds of supplies for the International Space Station.
The boat was 40 miles out to sea in the one of the first avoidance zones set for the first stage of the rocket.
The Salisbury Daily Times reports that with a launch window of just 10 minutes because of trajectory there is little time to remove any boats in these zones.
In any event the following night the mission was aborted just a few minutes after liftoff exploding just seconds later.
