Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences Resupply Mission

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: July 13, 2014 7:45:58 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences Resupply Mission

July 13, 2014
RELEASE 14-189

NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences Resupply Mission
The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket launches from Pad-0A with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, Sunday, July 13, 2014, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Cygnus spacecraft is filled with over 3,000 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station, including science experiments, experiment hardware, spare parts, and crew provisions. The Orbital-2 mission is Orbital Sciences' second contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

A multitude of NASA research investigations, crew provisions, hardware and science experiments from across the country is headed to the International Space Station aboard Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus spacecraft. The cargo craft launched aboard Orbital's Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 12:52 p.m. EDT Sunday.
The mission is the company's second cargo delivery flight to the station through a $1.9 billion NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract. Orbital will fly at least eight cargo missions to the space station through 2016.
The Orbital-2 mission is carrying almost 3,300 pounds of supplies to the station, which will expand the research capability of the Expedition 40 crew members. Among the research investigations headed to the orbital laboratory are a flock of nanosatellites designed to take images of Earth, developed by Planet Labs of San Francisco; and a satellite-based investigation called TechEdSat-4 built by NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which aims to develop technology that will eventually enable small samples to be returned to Earth from the space station.
An experiment managed by Ames called Smart Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) features a sensor and multiple cameras to enable 3-D mapping and robotic navigation inside the space station. In addition, a host of student experiments are on board as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program, an initiative of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and NanoRacks.
Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson of NASA, with help from Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, will use the station's robotic arm to take hold of Cygnus at 6:39 a.m. Wednesday, July 16. In August, the capsule, which will be filled with trash, will depart the station and burn up during reentry in Earth's atmosphere.
The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. In that time, it has been visited by more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.
For more information about the Orbital-2 mission and the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
Rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Dan Huot
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
daniel.g.huot@nasa.gov
Keith Koehler
Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia
757-824-1579
keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov

Press Release
Contact: Barron Beneski, (703) 406-5000, beneski.barron@orbital.com
Orbital Successfully Launches Antares Rocket Carrying Cygnus Spacecraft on Cargo Resupply Mission to International Space Station
-- Company Completes Fourth Successful Antares Launch in Past 15 Months --
-- Cygnus Operating as Planned Early in Mission; Arrival at Space Station
Scheduled for Early Morning on July 16 --
(Dulles, VA 13 July 2014) – Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced it successfully launched its AntaresTM medium-class rocket carrying a CygnusTM cargo logistics spacecraft, beginning the company's second operational cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).    Cygnus will deliver vital equipment, supplies and scientific experiments to the ISS as part of its $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.    More information about the CRS mission is available at http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/MissionUpdates/Orb-2/.
Lift-off of the Antares rocket occurred today at 12:52 p.m. (EDT) from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport's Pad 0A located NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.    Following a 10-minute ascent, the Cygnus spacecraft was successfully deployed and placed into its intended orbit of 120 x 180 miles (190 x 290 kilometers) above the Earth, inclined at 51.6 degrees to the equator.    Orbital's engineering team has confirmed that reliable communications had been established and that the solar arrays are fully deployed, providing the necessary electrical power to command the spacecraft.
The launch of Orbital's Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft will culminate in rendezvous and berthing with the ISS on July 16 at approximately 6:39 a.m. (EDT).    Cygnus will deliver 3,669 pounds (1,664 kilograms) of cargo to the Expedition 40 astronauts and remain attached to the station approximately 30 days before departing with approximately 2,950 pounds (1,340 kilograms) of disposable cargo for a safe, destructive reentry over the Pacific Ocean approximately five days later.
"Today's mission was the fourth successful launch of Antares in the past 15 months and the third deployment of Cygnus in less than a year," said Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital's President and Chief Executive Officer.    "So far, our second operational CRS mission is off to a great start with Cygnus operating exactly as anticipated at this early stage of the mission.    We are very pleased to be a reliable partner with NASA to meet their need for reliable, regularly scheduled cargo resupply for the ISS.    I salute the combined NASA and Orbital team for its hard work to get us to this point, and look forward to completing another safe and successful mission for our NASA customer."
Under the CRS contract with NASA, Orbital will use Antares and Cygnus to deliver approximately 44,000 pounds (20,000 kilograms) of cargo to the ISS over eight missions through 2016.    For these missions, NASA will manifest a variety of essential items based on ISS program needs, including food, clothing, crew supplies, spare parts and equipment, and scientific experiments.
Orbital privately developed the Antares launch vehicle to provide low-cost, reliable access to space for medium-class payloads.    It is the largest and most complex rocket the company has ever produced.    Under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) joint research and development initiative with NASA, Orbital also developed the Cygnus spacecraft, which is an advanced maneuvering vehicle that meets the stringent human-rated safety requirements for ISS operations.    Together, these products showcase Orbital's ability to apply rigorous engineering approaches and commercial business practices to significantly shorten development timelines and lower operational costs of sophisticated space systems as compared to traditional government-run programs.
About Antares
The Antares medium-class launch vehicle represents a major increase in the payload launch capability that Orbital can provide to NASA, the U.S. Air Force and commercial customers compared to its heritage small-class space launch vehicles such as Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur. The Antares rocket can launch spacecraft weighing up to 14,000 lbs. (6,400 kg.) into low-Earth orbit, as well as lighter-weight payloads into higher-energy orbits.    Orbital's newest launcher has completed three successful missions and is currently on-ramped to both the NASA Launch Services-2 and the U.S. Air Force's Orbital/Suborbital Program-3 contracts, enabling the two largest U.S. government space launch customers to order Antares for "right-size and right-price" launch services for medium-class spacecraft.    For more information on Antares, visit http://www.orbital.com/LaunchSystems/SpaceLaunchVehicles/Antares/.
About Cygnus
Orbital developed the Cygnus cargo spacecraft as part of its COTS joint research and development initiative with NASA.    Cygnus consists of a common Service Module (SM) and a Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM).    The SM incorporates avionics, power and propulsion systems already successfully flown aboard dozens of Orbital's LEOStar™ and GEOStar™ satellite products.    The PCM, designed and built by Thales Alenia Space under a subcontract from Orbital, is based on the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) used with the Space Shuttle.    For more information on Cygnus, visit http://www.orbital.com/AdvancedSystems/Publications/Cygnus_factsheet.pdf.

About Orbital
Orbital develops and manufactures small- and medium-class rockets and space systems for commercial, military and civil government customers.    The company's primary products are satellites and launch vehicles, including low-Earth orbit, geosynchronous-Earth orbit and planetary exploration spacecraft for communications, remote sensing, scientific and defense missions; human-rated space systems for Earth-orbit, lunar and other missions; ground- and air-launched rockets that deliver satellites into orbit; and missile defense systems that are used as interceptor and target vehicles.    Orbital also provides satellite subsystems and space-related technical services to U.S. Government agencies and laboratories.    More information about Orbital can be found at http://www.orbital.com.    Follow the company on Twitter @OrbitalSciences.
# # #
©2014 Orbital Sciences Corporation. All Rights Reserved

Private US Cargo Ship Blasts Off on Space Station Delivery
By Megan Gannon, News Editor   |   July 13, 2014 03:30pm ET

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — A private spaceship packed with astronaut food, science experiments and a fleet of tiny satellites soared into orbit from Virginia's Eastern Shore today (July 13) on an orbital delivery mission to the International Space Station for NASA.
The unmanned Cygnus spacecraft and its towering Antares rocket — the size of a 13-story building — lifted off at 12:52 p.m. (1652 GMT) under partly cloudy skies after stormy weather twice delayed the launch. Both spacecraft and rocket are commercial vehicles built by the aerospace company Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Virginia. NASA provided live video views of the Antares rocket launch during the liftoff from a seaside pad operated by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, or MARS, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.
"The countdown was extremely smooth," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's chief of human exploration and operations, told reporters. "Just a tremendous launch." [Gallery: Orbital Sciences' Orb-2 Cargo Mission in Photos]
An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket launches the Cygnus cargo ship from Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia on Sunday, July 13, 2014. The commercial mission will deliver supplies to astronauts on the International Space Station.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
View full size image
Keeping the station stocked
NASA has relied on private companies and foreign space agencies to keep the space station stocked with supplies since the U.S. space shuttle fleet retired in 2011. Under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA, Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences will fly eight missions through 2016. Today's flight, dubbed Orb-2, marks the second official Cygnus cargo mission to the station and the fourth launch of an Antares rocket in the last 15 months.
"Keeping [the space station] supplied, keeping it flying, and even, politically, keeping it supported by the various governments around the world continues to be a challenge," Frank Culbertson, a former NASA astronaut and current executive vice president for Orbital Sciences, told reporters ahead of the launch. "But I think that almost everyone involved in it around the world understands the importance of maintaining this foothold on the high ground in space because it is the next stepping to stone to where we're going go next — whether it's the moon, Mars, asteroids or further out into the solar system."
Culbertson said he expects the company's next launch, Orb-3, to take place in October; three more Orbital launches are planned for 2015.
The only other U.S. spaceflight company with a NASA contract to perform resupply missions is Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX. The Hawthorne, California-based company founded by billionaire Elon Musk has a $1.6 billion deal with NASA for 12 delivery missions. SpaceX launched the third of those flights in April.
Cygnus is carrying more than 3,600 lbs. (1,600 kilograms) of cargo to the station, including some much-needed food to restock the astronauts' pantry, as well as a replacement pump for the Japanese module and some other equipment. Gerstenmaier told reporters he could "breathe a sigh of relief" with the flight.
"It was getting to be where it was a little tense," Gerstenmaier added. "This next year will be really important to us as we establish a cadence of routine flights."
Originally scheduled for a May launch, Orb-2 had been delayed due to technical issues — primarily, a malfunction of an AJ26 engine (the kind that powers Antares) during a test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Without giving many details, Orbital officials told reporters that the ensuing investigation yielded favorable results.
"We have a lot of confidence that the two engines on Orb-2 are ready to go," Mike Pinkston, Orbital's Antares rocket program manager, told reporters in a pre-launch briefing Saturday (July 12).
The mission suffered more delays during this past week's flight window when bad weather prevented the launch team from readying the rocket. By Saturday, NASA officials estimated that they would see a 90 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch — and they expected many spectators along the Eastern Seaboard to have clear view of the rocket as it arced out over the Atlantic Ocean.
"I think we found the secret to getting people's attention here on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, and that's to launch on a Sunday in July," Culbertson said after the launch, noting the traffic jams around the normally sleepy beach town of Chincoteague.
5,001 manned days on the ISS
The launch comes a day after a manned spaceflight milestone: the 5,000th day humans have lived inside the $100 billion International Space Station.
"In those 5,000 days, not only have we managed to assemble this unique laboratory, but we've been able to conduct 1,600 experiments to date," Kirt Costello, assistant International Space Station program scientist, told reporters here in a briefing on Friday (July 11). "Really it's an amazing feat to be able to already have completed so much science. We are now in a period where utilization is really the prime goal of the space station."
Now that station managers are focused on using the lab rather than building it, commercial companies also have found ways to use the astronaut outpost as a platform for their research. Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that aims to image the whole Earth once a day, is sending a new constellation of 28 small satellites to be deployed from the station via Orb-2. [Planet Labs Photos of Earth from Space]
Today's cargo delivery also includes 15 student science experiments chosen from more than 1,000 proposals through NASA's Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP). As part of SSEP's so-called Charlie Brown payload, a Girl Scout troop from Hawaii will test the possibility of growing arugula in water; a group of students from New York City will study how mold grows on white bread in microgravity; and an 8th grader from Maryland will look at how water membranes form in space.
The principal investigator of that last experiment, Kevin He, told reporters here today that his project was, in part, inspired by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's viral video in which he showed how strangely water behaves without gravity by wringing out a wash cloth on the space station.
If all goes well, the Cygnus spacecraft will arrive at the International Space Station Wednesday morning (July 16). Astronauts living on board the orbiting lab will capture the vessel with a huge robotic arm, unload the cargo and refill the capsule with trash. The disposable vessel will remain attached to the space station for about 30 days before it is jettisoned toward Earth. After performing a few days' worth of engineering tests in orbit, the vessel will burn up in the planet's atmosphere over the South Pacific, Orbital officials said.
Editor's note: This article was updated Sunday (July 13) at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

Copyright © 2014 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved.

AmericaSpace
For a nation that explores
July 13th, 2014
Antares Successfully Launches ORB-2 Cygnus Mission to Space Station
By Ben Evans
Antares rumbles away from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at 12:52 p.m. EDT Sunday, 13 July. Photo Credit: John Studwell/AmericaSpace
After many delays, Orbital Sciences Corp. has successfully launched its second dedicated Cygnus cargo mission toward the International Space Station (ISS). Liftoff of the two-stage Antares booster, carrying Cygnus—whose mission, designated "ORB-2", is named in honor of the late NASA astronaut Janice Voss—took place on time at 12:52 p.m. EDT Sunday, 13 July, from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va. Within ten minutes of leaving Earth, Antares had boosted Cygnus into an initial orbit of 125 x 185 miles (200 x 300 km), inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator, allowing the unpiloted craft to begin deploying its solar arrays and communications appendages, ahead of rendezvous and berthing at the ISS on Wednesday morning.
As described in AmericaSpace's ORB-2 preview article, this mission has been waiting in the wings for some considerable time. Originally targeted for launch in early May, it was postponed into June by delays incurred by SpaceX's third Dragon cargo mission (SpX-3) and later into July, following the failure of an Antares AJ-26 first-stage engine on the test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center, Miss. At length, Orbital Sciences and NASA settled on a new launch date of Friday, 11 July, which was slipped firstly until the Saturday, 12 July, and ultimately until Sunday, 13 July, due to severe thunderstorms in the Wallops area. Meteorological conditions for Sunday's launch were reported as 90 percent favorable and televised views of Antares on its seaside launch pad showed beautiful weather conditions and waves gently lapping the shore.
The booster, which stands 133 feet (40.5 meters) tall, with the ORB-2 Cygnus encapsulated within its bulbous payload fairing, was rolled horizontally from Wallops' Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) over to the nearby Pad 0A on Thursday, 10 July, after which the Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) carrier raised it slowly to a vertical configuration. According to John Steinmeyer, the Senior Program Manager for Orbital's Launch Systems Group, the Antares/Cygnus flight control received their "Call to Stations" at about 8:00 a.m. EDT Sunday. Shortly thereafter, the process of "chilling down" the fuel lines of the rocket's first stage with liquid nitrogen got underway, ahead of loading the cryogenic propellants. Antares is Orbital's largest home-grown launch vehicle, as well as being the Dulles, Va.-based company's first foray into cryogenic rocketry. The first stage is powered to two Aerojet-built AJ-26 engines, which utilize a mixture of liquid oxygen and a highly-refined form of rocket-grade kerosene, known as "RP-1".
Stunning view of Antares, backdropped by an eerie full Moon on the evening of Saturday, 12 July. Photo Credit: John Studwell/AmericaSpace
Chilling down the engines—which were purchased from Russia in the mid-1990s and extensively upgraded by Aerojet with more modern electronics and systems—in this manner helped to prevent catastrophically "shocking" the equipment by being suddenly hit by a rapid temperature change. After a poll of the launch team at T-90 minutes, the liquid oxygen and RP-1 began flowing into the first stage tanks. The timing of the 75-minute loading protocol was critical, due to temporal limits associated with the rapid boil-off of the super-cold propellants, and a final poll of the launch team occurred in a two-step process.
In the meantime, at 12:20 p.m. EDT, the final balloon data was received by the flight control team and verified that upper-level winds were "Green" ("Go") for launch. For a time, the Range declared itself as "Red" ("No-Go"), due to the presence of an unauthorized boat in the launch danger area; this was shooed away by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Range adjusted its status to "Green". By 12:37 p.m., with 15 minutes remaining before the opening of the five-minute "launch window", fueling of Antares' first stage was concluded, with all propellants confirmed at "Flight Ready" levels, and at 12:41 p.m. the launch team completed its final poll and reported a definitive "Go for Launch".
Four minutes later, at 12:45 p.m. the TEL was armed to execute a rapid retraction from the vehicle at the instant of liftoff. At T-5 minutes, the Flight Termination System (FTS)—tasked with destroying the vehicle in the event of a major accident during ascent—was armed and Antares' avionics were transitioned from ground supplies to internal power. At T-3 minutes and 30 seconds, the "Terminal Count" was initiated and the rocket's autosequencer assumed primary control of vehicle critical functions, commanding all events up to the ignition of the twin AJ-26 engines at T-0. In the final 60 seconds of the countdown, the fuel tanks were pressurized, the gimbal navigation controls of the AJ-26 engines were tested and, finally, the TEL was retracted from the vehicle.
Precisely on time, at 12:52:14 p.m., the two AJ-26 engines roared to life and gradually ramped up thrust to their combined propulsive yield of about 734,000 pounds (332,930 kg), as computers continuously monitored their health and start-up performance. Two seconds later, at T+2 seconds (and 12:52:16 p.m.), liftoff was confirmed and Antares was released from Pad 0A to commence its ten-minute climb to orbit. Shortly after clearing the launch complex, at T+13 seconds, the rocket performed a combined pitch and roll program maneuver to establish itself onto the proper flight azimuth to insert the ORB-2 Cygnus into low-Earth orbit. A minute into the flight, Antares was already at an altitude of 3 miles (4.8 km) and traveling in excess of 500 mph (800 km/h), going supersonic a few seconds later. Maximum aerodynamic turbulence (colloquially known as "Max Q") was experienced throughout the airframe at T+80 seconds and the AJ-26 engines continued to burn hot and hard, until they were finally shut down at T+4 minutes and 15 seconds.
Trailing a tongue of brilliant golden flame, the fourth Antares mission in 15 months roars into the Virginia sky. Photo Credit: John Studwell/AmericaSpace
By this point, the vehicle had attained an altitude of about 66 miles (106 km) and the first stage was jettisoned, leaving the second stage—powered by a single Castor-30B solid-fueled engine, built by Alliant TechSystems—and Cygnus to coast, preparatory to discarding the bulbous, 32.5-foot-tall (9.9-meter) payload fairing at T+5 minutes and 30 seconds. According to AmericaSpace's Launch Tracker, this descended to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, ignition of the Castor-30B took place at exactly 12:58 p.m., six minutes after launch, and provided Cygnus with its final push into low-Earth orbit and a 'low point' (or 'perigee') of about 125 miles (200 km), inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator.
The Castor-30B burned out after two minutes, at 1:00 p.m., leaving the stack to coast for a further two minutes, until Cygnus separated at 1:02 p.m. A mere ten minutes had elapsed since Antares rocketed away from Wallops Island and Orbital Sciences Corp. could boast that the second dedicated Cygnus mission under its $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA—signed back in December 2008—was safely in orbit and ready for its three-day trek to the ISS. Separation from the second stage of the rocket occurred high above the Atlantic Ocean, to the east of Brazil, and at 1:08:29 p.m. Cygnus' first electricity-generating solar array was reported to be successfully deployed, with the second following shortly thereafter.
Yet this is merely the first step of a complex series of phasing and rendezvous maneuvers which Cygnus must complete, before Wednesday morning's scheduled berthing at the Earth-facing (or "nadir") port of the space station's Harmony node. Like its predecessor Cygnuses, the ORB-2 mission is named for a deceased astronaut: the ORB-D ("Demonstration") mission in September-October 2013 honored G. David Low, whilst ORB-1 in January-February 2014 paid tribute to C. Gordon Fullerton. Today's launch remembers five-time shuttle astronaut Janice Voss, who died of cancer two years ago. In the minutes after ORB-2 achieved orbit, the tributes began flooding in, via Twitter. Shuttle astronaut and ISS resident Nicole Stott called Voss "a wonderful human being – on her way to #ISS", whilst Expedition 40 crewman Reid Wiseman tweeted from the ISS: "Nicely done @Orbital Sciences – looking forward to #Cygnus arrival on Wednesday!"
With its twin gallium arsenide solar arrays providing a total of 3.5 kW of electrical capability, Voss' mechanized namesake will gradually close the distance with the ISS, ahead of capture by the station's 57.7-foot-long (17.6-meter) Canadarm2 at about 6:37 a.m. EDT Wednesday, 16 July. ORB-2 boasts several upgraded rendezvous tools, including a new Triangulation LIDAR (known as "TriDAR"), which provides a model-based laser navigation sensor, being trialed on this flight. It will compare its readings with a Computer Aided Design (CAD) of the station to determine relative positions and attitudes. "Cygnus will employ one TriDAR unit for the ORB-2 mission," NASA explained in its ORB-2 mission press kit. "Future missions will incorporate two TriDARs and one LIDAR." Cygnus will also employ a Quasonix lightweight, high-powered S-band radio for telemetry and commanding capability.
Artist's concept of the Cygnus cargo craft approaching the International Space Station. Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.
Early Wednesday, the spacecraft will hold position at a distance of 39.4 feet (12 meters) from the space station. At this stage, Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson—based in the multi-windowed cupola and assisted Germany's Alexander Gerst—will grapple Cygnus, via Canadarm2. With Cygnus denoting the Latin word for "swan", the first handful of letters of Swanson's surname, Orbital could not resist a cheeky tweet: "When #Cygnus (Latin for swan) arrives at the #ISS on the 16th, #AstroSwanson will be leading the grapple. Coincidence?" Less than two hours after the grapple, at 8:30 a.m. EDT, if all goes well, Swanson and Gerst will berth the spacecraft at the Harmony nadir port and open the hatches to begin unloading its cargo. Cygnus is a two-piece vehicle, comprising a Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM)—fabricated by Thales Alenia Space and based in design upon the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, used for cargo deliveries on 12 shuttle flights between March 2001 and July 2011—and Orbital's home-built Service Module (SM).
In an interview with NASA's Pat Ryan, Orbital's ORB-2 Visiting Vehicle Lead Floyd Booker remarked that long-range planning for payloads aboard Cygnus missions typically gets underway about 12 months ahead of launch. This mission carries a total of 3,293 pounds (1,493.8 kg) of supplies and equipment for the Expedition 40 crew, which, in addition to Swanson, Gerst and Wiseman, also features Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and Maksim Surayev. The payload includes 1,684 pounds (764.2 kg) of crew supplies, including "crew care packages"—among them gifts from the crew's families—and provisions, including foodstuffs. A further 783 pounds (355.1 kg) is devoted to vehicle hardware, including health care products, Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) equipment, EVA tools, equipment for the space station's electrical system and others.
Scientific experiments will comprise 721 pounds (327.0 kg) and include no fewer than 28 CubeSats. Known as "Flock 1b" and developed by Planet Labs of San Francisco, Calif., these are part of an expansive initiative to obtain imagery of Earth. "On the ORB-1 mission in January, Planet Labs … launched an initial fleet of 28 CubeSats, individually known as Dove satellites, from the space station," NASA explained. "This collective group of small, relatively inexpensive nanosatellites, known as 'Flock 1,' will be joined by 28 additional Dove satellites, Flock 1b, on the ORB-2 mission." To be deployed from the airlock of Japan's Kibo laboratory, the satellites' imagery "can be used to help identify and track natural disasters and responses to them," as well as helping to "improve environmental and agricultural monitoring and management."
The Antares vehicle for the ORB-2 mission lifted onto the Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL). The first stage core for the next mission (ORB-3) is on the left. Photo Credit: Orbital Sciences
Also hitching a ride into space aboard Cygnus is TechEdSat-4, to be deployed by Kibo's Small Satellite Orbital Deployer, which seeks to develop a tension-based drag device, known as "Exo-Brake," and demonstrate frequent uplink and downlink capabilities. "Engineers believe exo-brakes eventually will enable small samples return from the station or other orbital platforms to Earth," it was noted by NASA. Elsewhere, in association with the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP), the National Center for Earth and Space Science "Charlie Brown" payload includes 15 investigations, selected from 1,344 student team proposals, focusing upon food growth and consumption to the effect of microgravity on the oxidation process and even the production of penicillin on the space station.
According to NASA's ORB-2 press kit, Cygnus will remain berthed at the ISS for 36 days. It will be detached, again by means of Canadarm2, on 15 August. It will then "be guided to a safe distance away from the orbiting laboratory." However, unlike its ORB-D and ORB-1 predecessors, it will not be immediately plunged to a destructive re-entry. "The Cygnus spacecraft will fly an additional 15 days after departure to conduct spacecraft engineering tests to support future mission objectives," it was explained. "At the end of that free-flight period, Cygnus will perform a series of engine burns so that it will re-enter Earth's atmosphere for a destructive re-entry over the South Pacific Ocean." Cygnus will carry about 2,967 pounds (1,346 kg) of unneeded equipment for disposal during re-entry.
Copyright © 2014 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

Antares rocket boosts commercial Cygnus cargo ship into orbit
07/13/2014 03:27 PM
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo capsule thundered away from the Virginia coast Sunday and streaked into orbit, kicking off a three-day flight to deliver more than 1.5 tons of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.

After a string of delays caused by stormy weather, conflicts with other flights and an engine test failure, the rocket's two Russian-built first stage engines, supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne, ignited with a roaring rush of fiery exhaust at 12:52 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), generating 734,000 pounds of thrust.

The 133-foot-tall rocket quickly climbed away from pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Island, Va., flight facility, arcing away to the southeast through a partly cloudy sky and putting on a dramatic Sunday show for area residents and tourists jamming local roads and beaches.

Before and after: An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket lifts off from pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia's Eastern Shore Sunday, kicking off a space station cargo delivery mission. (Credit: NASA TV)

Burning oxygen and RP-1 kerosene rocket fuel, the Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 first stage engines fired for nearly four minutes, boosting the rocket out of the dense lower atmosphere and into the orbital plane of the space station.

After a short coast, the rocket's ATK solid-fuel second stage motor ignited at an altitude of about 106 miles and fired for two minutes and 17 seconds or so to put the spacecraft into an initial orbit with a high point, or apogee, of about 185 miles and a low point, or perigee, of around 125 miles.

Two minutes later, the Cygnus cargo ship was released from the second stage to fly on its own. The spacecraft's two solar panels unfolded and locked in place a few moments later, setting the stage for a series of carefully planned rendezvous rocket firings to catch up with the space station.

"We have completed the first burn," said Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle commander who serves as Orbital's vice president and general manager of advanced programs. "We deployed the solar arrays, we're getting full power, and all the systems on the spacecraft are operating nominally. So we're very excited about the fact that we're in orbit and we're headed to the station. ... We're really looking forward to the rendezvous."

If all goes well, the uncrewed Cygnus cargo craft will reach the lab complex early Wednesday, pulling up to within about 30 feet and then standing by while the lab's robot arm, operated by station commander Steve Swanson, locks on to pull it in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the forward Harmony module.

"Nicely done @Orbital_Sciences -- looking forward to #Cygnus arrival on Wednesday!" station astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted from orbit.

"Thanks Reid! We are coming your way -- carefully," Orbital tweeted back.

This is Orbital's second operational station resupply mission under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA that calls for eight flights through 2016 to deliver 20 tons of cargo. SpaceX holds a similar resupply contract, valued at $1.6 billion, for 12 flights to deliver some 44,000 pounds of equipment and supplies.

The commercial contracts were awarded to make up for the lost payload capability of NASA's space shuttle, which was retired in 2011. SpaceX has carried out three operational resupply missions to date with two more flights on tap in September and December and three flights planned next year. Orbital plans its third mission in October with two flights on tap in 2015.

William Gerstenmaier, NASA's director of space operations, said the agency plans to announce a second round of contracts in the December-January timeframe to continue commercial resupply operations past 2016. NASA hopes to operate the space station through 2024, if not longer, and keeping the lab supplied is critical.
An artist's concept of an Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo ship near the International Space Station. If all goes well, a Cygnus launched Sunday will reach the lab complex early Wednesday. (Credit: NASA)

For the current mission, known as Orb-2, the Cygnus cargo ship was loaded with 3,293 pounds of crew supplies, including food, spare parts and other station hardware, science equipment, spacewalk components and computer hardware.

The research cargo includes a variety of student experiments, supplies for NASA's Human Research Facility lab rack, igniters for the station's combustion test facility and a Japanese experiment designed to study convection in the microgravity environment of space.

Also on board: 28 small satellites -- nanosats -- built by Planet Labs of San Francisco, the third "flock" of spacecraft launched to date for testing in a commercial venture to continuously photograph the Earth. Four other nanosats also are on board, including one built by NASA to test techniques for returning small experiment samples to the ground.

The Cygnus spacecraft will remain attached to the station for about a month. After it is unloaded and re-packed with trash and no-longer-needed equipment, the lab's robot arm will unberth the cargo ship and release it from the station.

Before falling back to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere, the cargo ship will spend a few extra days in orbit for tests of new rendezvous equipment and procedures designed to allow the craft to remain in orbit for extended periods.

NASA originally hoped to launch the Orb-2 mission in May, but the flight was delayed to early June because of conflicts with other launches. Then, on May 22, an Antares first-stage engine being test fired for a flight next year suffered a catastrophic failure. The Orb-2 mission was put on hold pending a failure investigation.

The analysis is not yet complete, but the engines used Sunday were cleared for flight after additional boroscope inspections and a review of earlier test firings. Orbital then scheduled launch for Friday, but the flight slipped to Sunday because of stormy weather that interrupted ground processing.

© 2014 William Harwood/CBS News