Brig. Gen. mentioned, “Additionally, the launch of this mission clearly demonstrates successful collaboration our wing has with our partners at NASA Kennedy Space Center, the Space and Missile Systems Center and industry”.
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NASA said Wednesday astronaut Kjell Lindgren used the space station’s robotic arm to take in Cyngus and the spacecraft was bolted into place approximately three hours later for the ISS crew to collect the more than 7,000 pounds of supplies for studies on microorganisms and experiments to study the behavior of gases and liquids, thermo-physical properties of molten steel and flame-resistant textiles. The delivery was the first the ISS received in nearly half a year.
The spacecraft is carrying about 3,500 kg of materials, which could be stocked well into May, to resupply the space station, where food would run out in months without replenishment.
An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on Sunday, sending a long-awaited Orbital ATK cargo ship on its way to the International Space Station for NASA.
“Anytime a vehicle approaches the space station, it’s something different to look out at from the window, it’s a new procedure to run and it’s really exciting to be able to reach out and capture something flying in space and attach it to the space station”, said Dan Tani, a former astronaut who spent 120 days living and working aboard the station on Expedition 16 and now serves as Orbital ATK’s manager of mission and cargo operations.
Two of the six-man crew including space station commander Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will stay back at the space station.
Russian Federation also lost a supply ship earlier this year. The company plans to use another Atlas to deploy another Cygnus in March. The next SpaceX supply mission with its Falcon rocket is set for January.
While acknowledging 2015 has been a hard year because of the disrupted supply chain, Shireman said commercial space is inevitable and will drive down launch costs.
SpaceX hopes to resume its Dragon capsule flights early next year and Orbital ATK with its own Antares booster by May.
The Cygnus launched Sunday is named after Mercury 7 astronaut Deke Slayton, a pioneer in commercial spaceflight before his death in 1993.
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The cargo container is a smaller diameter version of the Italian-made Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules that flew up and down on space shuttles to outfit the station. It will remain connected to the space station for more than a month before its destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, disposing about 1,360 kilograms of trash.
