The Cygnus spacecraft will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
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“Everything is basically nominal on board the Deke Slayton II”, said Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems Group, in a post-launch press conference.
This week’s launch faced a couple of postponements due to weather: On Thursday, rain clouds forced a scrub.
ULA’s next launch is the GPS IIF-12 satellite for the U.S. Air Force, scheduled for February 3, 2016, from Space Launch Complex-41 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Instead of focusing on catching up, NASA will be able to send up more new experiments and components for the crew.
Orbital’s Cygnus cargo carrier is full of food, clothes, toiletries, spacewalking gear, science experiments and Christmas presents. SpaceX, the other supplier, suffered a launch failure in June.
Today’s spectacular blastoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying an Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial resupply spacecraft ignited the restart of critically needed American cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) following a pair of launch failures over the past year.
SpaceX was involved in the last successful resupply mission of the United States in April.
Mission Description:Cygnus is a low-risk design incorporating elements drawn from Orbital ATK and its partners’ existing, flight-proven spacecraft technologies.
Orbital ATK on Sunday launched its Cygnus cargo ship to resupply astronauts at the International Space Station, one year after a sudden rocket accident delivered a setback to commercial spaceflight. 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. Following Fridays delay for potentially unsafe gusts, Mark said in a tweet, Sorry (at)StationCDRKelly, youll have to wait one more day until you can read Mousetronaut!I dont know what I anticipate more, (hash)Mousetronaut or the new (hash)StarWars movie, Scott shot back via Twitter.Kelly is making NASAs first yearlong mission. All cargo was lost, leaving the station to manage with smaller loads of supplies brought by other craft.
The spacecraft ought to arrive on the space station on Wednesday.
“We had a reasonably clear flight, too, every part occurred proper on time…”
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The CRS-4 mission marks the debut of an enhanced version of the Cygnus vessel, which can carry 53 percent more than its previous version.
