Tag: Orbital ATK
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Cygnus service module arrives in Florida for station flight
The Cygnus service module for the OA-4 space station resupply mission arrives at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. Credit: Orbital ATK The power and propulsion section of Orbital ATK’s next Cygnus supply ship, featuring new solar panel and fuel tank designs, arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday to be joined with…
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Orbital ATK beats out Aerojet in ULA booster selection
File photo of Orbital ATK’s GEM-60 solid rocket booster before attachment to a Delta 4 rocket. The Atlas 5 and Vulcan rockets will use an enlarged version of the motor beginning at the end of 2018. Credit: NASA United Launch Alliance has selected Orbital ATK to provide solid rocket boosters for the company’s next-generation Vulcan…
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Orbital ATK receives orders for two more ISS cargo flights
The Italian-built pressurized cargo module for Orbital ATK’s next resupply mission to the International Space Station arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 10. The Cygnus service module is due to arrive at KSC in October for launch Dec. 3 aboard an Atlas 5 rocket. Credit: Orbital ATK NASA has put off…
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New engines arrive at Antares rocket launch site
File photo of an Antares rocket on its launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: Orbital ATK The first pair of new Russian main engines for Orbital ATK’s modernized Antares rocket has arrived at the company’s Virginia launch base as engineers prepare to return the commercial booster to flight after a catastrophic failure last year.…
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Minotaur rocket selected to launch military satellite in 2017
File photo of an Orbital ATK Minotaur 4 rocket on a launch pad at Kodiak Island, Alaska. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now Cape Canaveral will get its first Minotaur rocket launch in 2017, when the solid-fueled booster will send up a U.S. Air Force space surveillance satellite under a contract with Orbital ATK. An upgraded Minotaur…
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Orbital ATK picks up where it left off with Orion abort system
NASA’s Orion spacecraft, seen with a mostly inert launch abort system, is transferred to the launch pad before last December’s test flight. Credit: NASA/Frankie Martin Orbital ATK has cinched $188 million in contracts to complete development of the Orion crew capsule’s needle-shaped launch abort system, resuming work stalled in the wake up a major shakeup…
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Ariane 5 ready to pull double duty for DirecTV
The Ariane 5 rocket loaded with DirecTV and Sky Mexico 1 rolled to the launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace – Optique Video du CSG – S. Martin Two satellites equipped to broadcast television programming to millions of homes across the United States and Latin America are braced for launch from French…
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Decision on new space station cargo contracts deferred
SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft arrives at the International Space Station on April 17 for its sixth operational cargo delivery. Credit: ESA/NASA NASA expects to select commercial contractors to resupply the International Space Station in September, three months later than the agency’s previous timetable under a competition for cargo deliveries beginning in 2018. NASA was scheduled to…
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Photo: New Orbital ATK paint job for Pegasus carrier jet
Credit: Orbital ATK The aircraft that air-launches the Pegasus rocket has been repainted with new livery to mark the recent corporate merge that formed Orbital ATK. The L-1011 jet, named Stargazer, carries the light-class Pegasus launchers to an altitude of 39,000 feet and releases the booster to fire into space. Pegasus has flown 42 times…
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Powerful solid rocket motor fired in Utah
A five-segment solid rocket booster fires in Utah on Wednesday. Credit: Orbital ATK A solid-fueled rocket booster fired for more than two minutes in Utah on Wednesday, spewing a torrent of glowing hot flame against a hillside in a key test for the Space Launch System, a behemoth rocket NASA is developing to send astronauts…