The unmanned Atlas V (five) rocket blasted off Sunday, carrying 7,400 pounds of space station cargo, following three days of weather delays. 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.
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The resupply services contract between NASA and Orbital ATK requires 10 missions to the ISS that would total 63,272 lbs of cargo. And in a separate event earlier this year SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying an uncrewed Dragon capsule disintegrated above Florida, putting those cargo flights on hold as well. “Caught something good on the horizon”.
NASA aims to keep a six-month supply of food aboard the ISS.
With a different rocket, ULA’s Atlas V (which has a ideal 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’s great to be back in space and have Cygnus up there”, Frank Culbertson, president of Obital ATK’s Space Systems Group, told reporters afterward. “With the help of our friends at ULA, who stepped forward and offered us a ride in a very short period of time, we’ve reached this point”, which is, he added, less than 12 months from the first discussion to launch. “That’s quite an accomplishment for a commercial space industry in my opinion, and I think it says a lot about what we can do to support NASA and all of exploration”.
– The S.S. Deke Slayton II is now on its way to the International Space Station. After going through a series of safety checks, it will make its final approach before being grappled by one of the station’s robotic arms and guided to a docking berth on the Unity module.
Once the cargo ship arrives near the ISS, astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly will pull it in close the by using the Canadarm2.
“So giving those guys food and T-shirts is near and dear to my heart”, said Dan Tani, Orbital ATK’s senior director for mission and cargo operations.
The launch marks Orbital’s fourth scheduled mission to the orbiting outpost, as a part of a Dollars 1.9 billion contract with NASA to ship requirements to the astronauts dwelling in space.
The spacecraft will remain connected to the station through most of January as astronauts first unpack the new gear and then load some 3,000 pounds of used and unneeded equipment into the Cygnus along with trash.
Just after 6 p.m., engineers confirmed that the cylindrical spacecraft’s two solar arrays had unfurled like Japanese fans, ensuring they could generate the power needed to complete the mission. After about a month, the craft will return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. That’s because its own rocket, the Antares, remains grounded following a 2014 launch explosion. Russia, which also lost a shipment earlier this year, has another supply run coming up in two weeks.
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Space station program manager Kirk Shireman said that the ISS’s pantry will be refilled by another year if no more accident takes place.
