Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/406903
ByBrockVergakis The Associated Press CHINCOTEAGUE,VA. Crews searched for scorched wreckage along the Vir- ginia coast Wednesday in hopes of determining why an unmanned commercial rocket exploded in a blow to NASA's strategy of using private companies to send supplies and, eventually, astronauts to the Interna- tional Space Station. The 140-foot Antares rocket, operated by Orbital Sciences Corp., blew up 15 seconds after liftoff Tues- day, lighting up the night sky and raining flaming de- bris on the launch site. No one was injured, but the $200 million-plus mission was a total loss. The blast not only in- cinerated the cargo — 2½ tons of station equipment and science experiments dreamed up by schoolchil- dren — but dealt a setback to the commercial space- flight effort championed by NASA and the White House even before the shuttles were retired. It was the first failure after an unbroken string of successful commer- cial cargo flights to the space station since 2012 — three by Orbital and five by SpaceX, the other U.S. company hired by the space agency to deliver supplies. Although the cause of the blast is still unknown, sev- eral outside experts cast suspicion on the 1960s-era Russian-built engines used in the rocket's first stage. Orbital Sciences chairman David Thompson himself said that the Russian en- gines had presented "some serious technical and sup- ply challenges in the past." He said he expects the in- vestigation to zero in on the cause within a week or so. The launch pad appeared to have been spared major damage. As for launching again, Thompson said he expects a delay of at least three months in the company's next flight to the space sta- tion, which had been set for April. "We are certainly disap- pointed by this failure, but in no way are we discour- aged or dissuaded from our objectives," he told inves- tors in a phone conference. Former NASA Adminis- trator Michael Griffin, who helped spearhead the com- mercial cargo effort, noted that the Antares rocket was still in development. He and others associated with the space agency went into the program knowing that fail- ures were likely. "It's obviously tragic and upsetting, but we'll move on," Griffin told The Asso- ciated Press. In another few years, NASA hopes to launch as- tronauts again from U.S. soil — aboard commercially supplied spacecraft. Orbital Sciences has never intended to fly any- thing more for NASA than cargo. The political fallout from the blast is more likely to affect SpaceX and Boe- ing, both of which are un- der NASA contract to fly Americans to the space sta- tion by 2017. BLOW TO NASA Ru ss ia n ro ck et e ng in es su sp ec te d in l au nc h bla st RICH-JOSEPHFACU—THEVIRGINIAN-PILOT Spectators in Chincoteague, Va. watch the fireball from the explosion of the unmanned Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule seconds a er li off from Wallops Island, Va. on Tuesday. By Elena Becatoros The Associated Press SURUC,TURKEY Iraqi pesh- merga troops were cheered Wednesday by fellow Kurds in southeastern Turkey as the fighters slowly made their way toward the Syr- ian Kurdish border town of Kobani to try to break a siege there by Islamic State militants. But the ability of the small force to turn the tide of battle will depend on the effectiveness of their weap- ons and on continued U.S.- led airstrikes against the extremists. "We are waiting for the peshmerga. We want to see what weapons they have," said 30-year-old Nidal At- tur, who arrived in Suruc two weeks ago from a small village near Kobani. He and other euphoric Kurds waited for hours along streets in Suruc to catch a glimpse of the pesh- merga troops they consider to be heroes. Most were see- ing them for the first time. After a rousing send-off from thousands of cheering supporters a day earlier in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil, the peshmerga forces landed early Wednesday at the Sanliurfa airport in southeastern Turkey. They left the airport in buses escorted by Turkish security forces and were ex- pected to travel to Kobani later Wednesday. Others traveled to Turkey in trucks and vehicles loaded with cannons and heavy machine guns. They crossed into Tur- key through the Habur bor- der gate before daybreak Wednesday and were driv- ing about 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) to Suruc. The peshmerga troops — about 150 in all — were expected to join up along the road to the Mursitpi- nar border crossing, where they were to enter Kobani. Separately, a small group of Syrian rebels en- tered Kobani from Turkey on Wednesday in a push to help Kurdish fighters there against the militants, ac- tivists and Kurdish offi- cials said. The group of about 50 armed men is from the Free Syrian Army and is separate from Iraqi pesh- merga fighters. The FSA is an umbrella group of main- stream rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. The politi- cal leadership of the West- ern-backed FSA is based in Turkey, where fighters often seek respite from battle. Kurdish fighters in Syria, known as the People's Pro- tection Units or YPG, have been struggling to defend Kobani against the Islamic State group since mid-Sep- tember, despite dozens of coalition airstrikes against the extremists. It is not clear what im- pact this small but battle- hardened combined force of FSA and peshmerga fight- ers — and their combined weaponry — will have in the battle for Kobani. Kurdish fighters are already sharing information with the coali- tion to coordinate strikes against IS militants there, but the new force may help improve efforts and offer ad- ditional battlefield support. Nawaf Khalil, Europe- based spokesman for Syr- ia's leading Kurdish Demo- cratic Union Party, said the peshmerga force was "sym- bolic in number" but their weapons will play a positive role in Kobani. ISLAMIC STATE SIEGE Peshmerga troops cheered by fellow Kurds in Turkey By Alicia A. Caldwell The Associated Press WASHINGTON It was an ex- traordinary ruse. Dramatic new video obtained by The Associated Press, filmed through the lapel camera carried by an undercover government agent, shows how the FBI tricked its way inside a luxury villa at Cae- sars Palace as part of a major international gambling bust. Defense lawyers said the FBI shut off Internet access to the suspects then imper- sonated repair technicians to get inside and collect ev- idence. The video shows investi- gators devising code words to use while they were in- side, a back-and-forth about the cover story for an agent, who adopted the name "Sam," which he had used "for other stuff" in the past, and a brief exchange about how another investigator should dress for the role of a technical repair nerd. "If you put on that shirt, you have to look the part. Go all the way," said Mike Wood, an outside techni- cian working for Caesars, advising Nevada Gaming Control Board Agent Ri- cardo Lopez before Lopez headed to one of the suites the morning of July 4. Inside a Las Vegas villa on July 5, Lopez appeared to try to fix an Internet outage for several minutes while glancing around the room and asking more than once to view a laptop screen to verify that Internet con- nectivity was still down. De- fense lawyers said in their filing that Mike Kung, the FBI agent, was sent inside because he spoke Chinese. Still undercover, Lo- pez appeared to call Wood from inside the villa and asked him to "check the frame," the code they had previously worked out. In a brief back and forth, Wood responded that he would "trace the wire and make sure it's tied down good." Defense lawyer Thomas Goldstein, who is chal- lenging evidence the gov- ernment collected in what he described as an illegal search, said that was code to turn Internet access back on. After the agents left the villa, Lopez was recorded saying he saw the Inter- net address of the website that defendant Wei Seng Phua was operating, add- ing, "Phua had the odds up on his page the whole time." Federal authorities de- scribed Phua, 50, as a high- ranking member of the 14k Triad, a Chinese organized crime group. Goldstein said Phua denied that allegation, which he said had nothing to do with the criminal case in Nevada. Phua, his son Darren Wai Kit Phua, Seng Chen Yong, Wai Kin Yong and four oth- ers were arrested in July after federal agents raided three high-roller villas at the hotel. All eight face charges of transmission of wagering information, op- erating an illegal gambling business, and aiding and abetting. LAS VEGAS RESORT FBI agents pose as repairmen in bust PAID ADVERTISEMENT | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2014 4 B