Orbital Science was set to launch its Cygnus cargo spacecraft on Thursday, but thick clouds and rain over its launch site in Florida forced Orbital ATK to postpone the launch until Friday, 4:33 p.m. EST.
Advertisement
An uncrewed, privately-built, cargo-carrying spacecraft loaded down with thousands of pounds of supplies for NASA is expected to launch atop a commercial rocket to the International Space Station Friday, after bad weather delayed its first launch attempt Thursday. The Cygnus spacecraft has more than 7,000 pounds (3,200 kilograms) of crew supplies, other equipment and scientific experiments.
Rocket/Payload: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 will launch Orbital ATK’s Cygnus™ spacecraft on the initial leg of its cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Today’s weather outlook does not appear to be much better, with only a 30 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch time. In June, a Falcon 9 rocket launched by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. blew up en route to the orbiting lab. Orbital has made two successful liftoffs under its 2008 pact with NASA, while SpaceX has completed six.
The Atlas V rocket has proved consistently reliable since its maiden launch in 2002, suffering only one significant issue in 2007 when a valve leak in the upper stage caused it to shut down early.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – For the second day in a row, foul weather threatened to stall a critical space station delivery for NASA on Friday. Orbital ATK bought another company’s rocket, the veteran Atlas V, for this supply mission.
The next attempt at launch will come on Friday at 5:33pm (9:33pm GMT or 3:03am IST, Saturday), with the opening of a 30-minute launch window, Nasa said.
Russian Federation also lost a supply ship earlier this year.
It’s another no-go for the first space station supply run in months from the U.S.
Advertisement
This is an important launch for Orbital after its failed launch in October of a year ago, when its Antares rocket exploded 15 seconds from launch, turning the cargo into a fireball and damaging Wallops Island’s launchpad.
