Instead of boosting Cygnus straight to the International Space Station, the Atlas V will use its flexibility to deliver the spacecraft into an orbit where it can loiter in space for several weeks before rendezvousing with the space station on December 19th.
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“Santa is on his way!'” Tory Bruno, president of rocket maker United Launch Alliance, announced via Twitter.
A view from a camera on the Atlas V rocket carrying Cygnus toward the Space Station. Boeing intends to use the Atlas V to boost the Starliner capsules it’s building to ferry astronauts to the space station beginning in 2017.
Today’s launch was the ninth and final Atlas 5 flight of the year, the 12th and last for United Launch Alliance in 2015.
Officials from Orbital ATK said that the company has made a decision to replace the Antares’ first-stage engines with RD-181 engines.
Poor weather scrubbed launch attempts Thursday and Friday, and caused a third try on Saturday to be postponed. The capsule carries more than 3500kg of food, clothing, computer gear, spacewalk equipment, science experiments and other supplies.
United Launch Alliance manager Vernon Thorp couldn’t help but notice all the number fours in Sunday’s launch equation. 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.
The station’s robotic arm will grapple the spacecraft and berth it to the Earth-facing port on the Node 1, or Unity, module, the first time that docking port has been used by a cargo spacecraft. Russia, which also lost a shipment earlier this year, has another supply run coming up in two weeks.
NASA is anxious to get its commercial supply chain moving again for the International Space Station. This capability, combined with the flexibility of ULA’s Atlas V, enabled Orbital ATK to carry out the mission on a shortened schedule to be responsive to NASA’s ISS logistics requirements. Christmas presents also are on board.In orbit, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly had to endure some teasing from his identical twin back home about the repeated delays.
NASA hired out station supply and crew missions to industry, for billions of dollars, as its 30-year shuttle program wound down. They are an example of how technology drives innovation, as they will test new network capabilities for operating swarms of spacecraft in the future.
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The Cygnus spacecraft set to launch is dubbed the S.S. Deke Slayton II, after the original Project Mercury astronaut and pioneer of the first privately funded rocket.
