Sunday’s launch was the 60th such launch of the Decatur, Alabama-built Atlas V rocket and is also notable for being ULA’s first mission supporting ISS cargo resupply.
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The company grounded the rocket to replace its troubled Soviet-era main engines and hopes to return the refurbished booster to flight in May.
That is why Orbital ATK switched its launch plans to the Atlas rocket, while retrofitting its Antares rocket design.
Cygnus will be grappled at approximately 6:10 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 9, by NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, using the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to take hold of the spacecraft. After the launch, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, commander of the station’s six-man crew, wrote on Twitter, “Caught something good on the horizon”. Another Cygnus mission on an Atlas V will be launched in March, after which Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket will launch at least two ISS resupply missions in the second and fourth quarters of 2016.
Wind remained a concern Sunday for a space station delivery mission that’s already running late.
Much-needed food is inside Orbital’s cargo carrier, named Cygnus after the swan constellation.
Orbital ATK Cygnus is on its way to the International Space Station.
Reflection view of Orbital ATK Cygnus CRS-4 spacecraft poised for blastoff to ISS on ULA Atlas V on December 5, 2015 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
The company is still redesigning the Antares rocket and it won’t be ready for months yet, so instead, Orbital Sciences will be using the tried-and-tested Atlas V delivery system instead, at no extra cost to NASA.
The spacecraft is carrying the most cargo ever packed onto a barrel-shaped Cygnus, with some 7,300 pounds (3,300 kilograms) of gear, including science experiments, ready-made food, a jet pack for spacewalking astronauts and even a satellite made by elementary school students. “I congratulate the combined NASA, ULA and Orbital ATK team for its hard work to get us to this point, and I look forward to completing another safe and successful flight to the ISS in several days”. Normally used for hefty satellite launches, it is the mighty successor to the Atlas used to put John Glenn into orbit in 1962. Orbital ATK also provides a critical service by providing large-volume pressurized disposal cargo, a unique capability among America’s commercial cargo providers.
For the past six months NASA has relied on Russian and Japanese rockets to bring supplies to and from the space station. NASA’s other commercial supplier, SpaceX, is also sidelined by a launch accident.
NASA hired out station supply and crew missions to industry, for billions of dollars, as its 30-year shuttle program wound down.
“It is our future”, Shireman stressed last week.
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The Cygnus launched Sunday is named after Mercury 7 astronaut Deke Slayton, a pioneer in commercial spaceflight before his death in 1993.
