{"id":11526,"date":"2021-08-10T19:04:38","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T11:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/antares-launch-timeline-on-the-ng-16-mission\/"},"modified":"2021-08-10T19:04:38","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T11:04:38","slug":"antares-launch-timeline-on-the-ng-16-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/antares-launch-timeline-on-the-ng-16-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Antares launch timeline on the NG-16 mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_52893\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52893\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52893\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/ng16timeline.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"1188\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/ng16timeline.jpg 900w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/ng16timeline-227x300.jpg 227w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/ng16timeline-678x895.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/ng16timeline-768x1014.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52893\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This graphic illustrates the major events during the Antares rocket\u2019s climb into orbit with the Cygnus supply ship on the NG-16 mission. Credit: Northrop Grumman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Northrop Grumman\u2019s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Tuesday to begin a pursuit of the International Space Station.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket\u2019s two RD-181 engines will ignite around 3.7 seconds before liftoff from pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a complex owned by the state of Virginia at NASA\u2019s Wallops Flight Facility.<\/p>\n<p>Launch is timed for 5:56 p.m. EDT (2156 GMT) Tuesday, Aug. 10.<\/p>\n<p>The first stage\u2019s two RD-181 engines will power up to 864,000 pounds of thrust and burn for 3 minutes, 18 seconds, then separate from the upper stage\u2019s Castor 30XL motor about six seconds later.<\/p>\n<p>The launch, known as NG-16 in Northrop Grumman\u2019s station resupply manifest, will be the 10th Antares mission using new, more powerful RD-181 engines, which the company ordered from the Russian engine-builder NPO Energomash to replace decades-old Russian-built AJ26 engines blamed for an Antares rocket crash seconds after liftoff in October 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Once the first stage finishes its job on the NG-16 launch, the Antares rocket\u2019s 12.8-foot-diameter (3.9-meter) diameter payload shroud will jettison in two halves at around T+plus 3 minutes, 54 seconds. An interstage adapter that connected the first and second stages will separate at T+plus 3 minutes, 59 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>The launcher\u2019s Castor 30XL solid-fueled upper stage will ignite at T+plus 4 minutes, 7 seconds, and generate up to 104,300 pounds of thrust during a burn lasting approximately 2 minutes, 45 seconds. The second stage motor will burn out at approximately T+plus 6 minutes, 52 seconds, then deploy the Cygnus spacecraft at around T+plus 8 minutes, 52 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft\u2019s two cymbal-shaped electricity-generating solar arrays will unfurl in a fan-like motion around two hours into the mission, and the ship\u2019s thrusters will begin fine-tuning its approach to the space station with a series of course-correction burns, setting up for a laser-guided final approach Thursday, Aug. 12.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This graphic illustrates the major events during the Antares rocket\u2019s climb into orbit with the Cygnus supply ship on the NG-16 mission. Credit: Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman\u2019s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Tuesday to begin a pursuit of the International Space Station. The rocket\u2019s two RD-181 engines will ignite around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}