NASA’s spirits soared Sunday as weather forecasters offered significantly better odds of launching a rocket with much-needed supplies to the International Space Station. The spacecraft is now on its way to the International Space Station, the first such trip in approximately 18 months.
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The Atlas V launch vehicle lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a Cygnus resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station. The mission marks Orbital’s first return to space since its Antares rocket blew up shortly after take off at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in October 2014. NASA’s other commercial supplier, SpaceX, is also stuck on Earth.
In a string of failed resupply cargo ship launches, the space station has been struggling to rebound from this series of unfortunate events. “Be ready”, added Frank Culbertson, head of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems Group, in congratulatory remarks to the launch team.
After this, supplies have been arriving at the space station safely although none of them were launched from American soil. The Cygnus is carrying more than 7,000 pounds of cargo. NASA normally likes to have a six-month stash of food aboard the space station, but it’s down a couple months because of the three failed flights.
The blast cost Orbital at least $200 million in lost equipment and supplies.
With a different rocket, ULA’s Atlas V (which has a flawless record of 60 successful launches now, ) and a different launch site, ULA’s pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Orbital ATK got its fourth shipment off the ground.
“It is our future”, said Space station program manager Kirk Shireman, while acknowledging the difficulties in sustaining a space mission, reports Investment Underground. It will be the first NanoRacks microsatellite deployed from the space station and the first propulsion-capable satellite deployed from the NanoRacks-MicroSat-Deployer known as Kaber. Boeing plans to use the Atlas V to launch its commercial crew spacecraft for NASA, the Starliner, as early as 2017.
The Nodes satellites, sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and developed by the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, consist of two CubeSats weighing 4.5 pounds each and measuring 4 inches by 4 inches by 6.5 inches. A SpaceX Dragon capsule also fell into the ocean when its Falcon 9 rocket exploded last June.
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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.
