Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 29, 1995                   TAG: 9510300031
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WALLOPS ISLAND                                LENGTH: Short

FAULTY INTERNAL SIGNAL CAUSED ROCKET TO BLOW UP

EER Systems officials still are trying to determine what caused the $20 million rocket to explode, and expect to release a preliminary report Nov. 3, said Jim Hengle, a vice president of the Seabrook, Md., aerospace company.

The five-story Conestoga blew up 46 seconds after liftoff from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. The state's first commercial rocket launch, five years in the making, was carrying a load of scientific experiments into space.

The rocket was on course when it received a bad control signal that was full of static, Hengle said. An onboard computer sensed the problem and ordered the Conestoga to self-destruct. NASA officials monitoring the launch also signaled the rocket to destroy itself, but it had already done so.

``The noise distracted the rocket into thinking it was in a location other than where it was,'' he said.

Rocket boosters did not malfunction, Hengle said, which had been suggested last week as a possible cause.

- Associated Press