United Launch Alliance moved the Atlas 5 rocket, carrying an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft, to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, early December 2. Update: The forecast from the 45th Weather Squadron has worsened to just a 30 per cent chance of favourable launch conditions today.
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You can watch coverage of the Cygnus launch starting at 4:30 p.m. ET directly through NASA TV or in the window embedded below.
NASA chose to hire two contractors to haul cargo with the goal of always having one ship available if one of the firm’s rockets failed. The launch will be the first for Orbital ATK’s Cygnus aircraft since its Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on October 28 2014.
The two companies, and others, are racing toward a $3.5 billion contract for managing all of NASA’s ISS resupply needs for the next seven years.
This time, the Cygnus spacecraft will deliver about 3,500 kilograms of cargo, including food and Christmas gifts to the space station. Launch of the Atlas V is scheduled for Thursday evening. The California company expects to resume deliveries in January. It also marks ULA’s first mission supporting ISS cargo resupply.
“The process has gone very smoothly”, said Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems Group.
The Antares carried out three station shipments before trouble with the old Russian-built rocket engines doomed the fourth flight.
“Within a few days, actually, we had a plan”, he said.
Atlas V and Cygnus rain delay Rain and thick clouds scrubbed the launch of an Atlas V rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.
Part of Cygnus’s cargo will include Kaber, a device that the space station’s Canadian robot Dextre will use to launch small satellites from the space station.
Making the best use of taxpayer funded resources has been a key objective from reorganization of the space center’s management structure to providing optimum utilization of available assets.
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Named “S.S. Deke Slayton II” after the Mercury 7 astronaut and commander of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, today’s launch would have been the first for the enhanced Cygnus, which carries 53 percent more cargo weight.
