“The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft will be configured to launch tomorrow at 5:33 p.m. EST, the opening of a 30-minute window”, NASA informed on its website on Thursday.
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In order to keep the thousands of pounds of supplies, science and hardware from moving during launch and in flight, the cargo is packed in bags and strapped to the walls.
The forecast isn’t good Friday either, with only a 40% chance of acceptable conditions.
“I’m guessing that Santa’s sleigh is somewhere inside the Cygnus, and they’re probably excited about their stockings coming up, too”, Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s space systems group, said at a news conference Wednesday.
– A rocket is poised for an evening launch from Cape Canaveral, the first US cargo launch to the space station after two high-profile failures. The rocket and the company’s cargo ship were destroyed.
The mission is United Launch Alliance’s 12th and final launch of the year.
A successful launch would restart the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s effort to commercialize resupply missions to the ISS.
Orbital ATK is using another company’s rocket for this shipment because its own remains grounded. The Orbital aims to deliver a total of 44,000 pounds worth of cargo to the International Space Stations as per the contract in 8 deliveries however, the explosion and resultant failiure of the resupply mission in 2014 might create difficulties to make 8 trips by the end of 2016.
HoloLens augmented-reality goggles to assist astronauts aboard the space station. This new experiment will look into the possible causes of this arterial stiffening, to help protect the health of astronauts and to potentially benefit people on Earth as well.
The planned launch comes after NASA suffered two catastrophic losses in less than a year of cargo vessels bound for the International Space Station.
Kaber: although not designed or built in Canada, this new component for the station will be used by Dextre – the space station’s Canadian-built robotic “handyman” – to launch microsatellites into Earth orbit.
Culbertson noted it’s been a challenge to get to this point, “but return-to-flight became the company’s very, very sharp focus” following the launch accident.
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The Cygnus capsule is named after Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton, a commercial space pioneer.
