Cygnus cargo ship arrives at ISS
Nearly four tons of food, spare parts and science experiments have arrived safely at the International Space Station after a late Tuesday blastoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
At 6:51 a.m. EDT Saturday, astronauts Tim Kopra of NASA and Tim Peake of the European Space Agency used the orbiting laboratory’s 58-foot robotic arm to snare Orbital ATK’s Cygnus supply ship, as both spacecraft flew 252 miles above the southern Indian Ocean.
Orbital ATK gave the Cygnus the honorary name of “S.S. Rick Husband,” for the late NASA astronaut who piloted an early space shuttle mission to the ISS and commanded the Columbia crew lost during reentry from space in 2003.
“Excellent work, gentlemen,” radioed Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian astronaut communicating with the crew from Mission Control in Houston. “Much appreciated. Made that look easy.”
“We’re really honored to bring aboard the S.S. Rick Husband to the International Space Station,” replied Kopra. “It recognizes a personal hero to so many of us, and this will be the first Cygnus honoree who was directly involved with the construction of this great station.”
Husband’s wife and two children were present to see the Cygnus launched from Cape Canaveral by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 11:05 p.m. Tuesday.
Atlas V rocket boosts Cygnus spacecraft from Cape Canaveral
Among the science experiments packed on the Cygnus was Strata-1, a study of simulated asteroid regolith involving researchers from the University of Central Florida.
Two more supply runs will quickly follow the Cygnus mission dubbed OA-6.
Next up: a Russian Progress freighter is due to blast off at 12:23 p.m. EDT Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and dock two days later.
Then SpaceX is targeting an April 8 launch from Cape Canaveral of a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule, the first Dragon to fly since a launch failure last June (the Falcon 9 has launched three times since then).
“The traffic just keeps coming over the short-term here,” said Kenny Todd, NASA’s ISS operations integration manager, before the Cygnus launch.
SpaceX last week posted a picture of one of the mission’s high-profile payloads being loaded into the Dragon’s unpressurized “trunk.” Bigelow Aerospace’s Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is a prototype habitat module that could be the basis for a private space station.
Engine issue delays ULA's next Atlas V launch
Vulcan advances
The rocket upon which United Launch Alliance’s future hinges has completed an important early design milestone, the company announced last week.
The “preliminary design review” kept the Vulcan rocket on track for a first launch as soon as 2019.
The review assessed a Vulcan powered by a pair of Blue Origin BE-4 main engines, but ULA continues to study an alternative that would use Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 engine instead.
The BE-4 is the more likely choice because its development is more than a year ahead of the AR1’s.
ULA is developing the Vulcan to replace its existing fleet of Atlas V and Delta IV rockets.
Congress has demanded the military stop relying on Russian rocket engines to launch national security missions, limiting the future for ULA’s workhorse Atlas V. The Delta IV is prohibitively expensive.
The more affordable Vulcan could allow ULA to compete with SpaceX and others not only for government missions that have been the company’s primary reason for being, but also for commercial satellite launches.
However, ULA’s parent companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have not yet made a long-term commitment to the Vulcan, funding it only on a quarterly basis.
Antares return to flight
With a second Cygnus spacecraft safely launched from the Space Coast by an Atlas V rocket, Orbital ATK’s focus is now on returning its Antares rocket to flight from Virginia.
The company in May plans to test-fire the rocket’s new Russian-made RD-181 engines at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.
The next Antares launch of a Cygnus, a mission labeled OA-5, is tentatively expected in July, but the timing depends on NASA’s cargo needs.
“We look forward to flying out of there and having a two-launch site capability for the Cygnus,” said Frank Culbertson, head of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems Group.
Test drive
The transporter being upgraded to carry NASA’s next exploration rocket to its pad was out for a test drive last week at Kennedy Space Center.
Crawler-Transporter 2 drove between the Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pad 39B to test various upgrades including new generators, bearings and jacking, elevation and leveling cylinders.
NASA first used crawler-transporters to haul Saturn V moon rockets to their pads, then space shuttles that launched for three decades.
NASA’s 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, is targeting a first test launch in 2018 from pad 39B with an unmanned Orion crew capsule. The rocket and a mobile launch tower will ride atop the crawler-transporter.
“This is going to be our crawler-transporter for the next 30 years,” KSC Director Bob Cabana said earlier this month. “We are going to roll out to the pad with the vehicle that will one day take us to Mars on this crawler-transporter.”
Rutherfords ready
Rocket Lab, a New Zealand company considering the Space Coast as a site for launches and engine manufacturing, says its Rutherford rocket engines are now qualified for flight.
Test flights of the Electron rocket, which is being designed to launch small satellites, could begin in the second half of this year from the company’s New Zealand launch site.
“We are seeing the vehicle come together, and are looking to move to manufacturing at quantity for both our test and commercial flights,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab CEO, in a press release.
Rocket Lab has a $7 million award from NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, to fly small satellites by April 2018.
Moon Express, which is testing a small lunar lander at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, has chosen the Electron for a planned 2017 launch in its bid to capture the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE.
Walk of Fame auction
The U.S. Space Walk of Fame Museum in downtown Titusville will host a fundraising auction of aerospace memorabilia from noon to 5 p.m. next Saturday.
More than 200 items donated by space workers and astronauts include pins and patches, signed photos, mission manuals and flight plans, and a “Lunar Bible” flown in microfilm form on Apollo 13.
Review the items and place bids online or at the museum located at 308 Pine Street. All proceeds will help the nonprofit expand its education programs refresh its gallery space Visit www.spacewalkoffame.org for details.
Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.