{"id":11849,"date":"2021-02-20T22:43:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T14:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/antares-launch-timeline-on-the-ng-15-mission\/"},"modified":"2021-02-20T22:43:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T14:43:16","slug":"antares-launch-timeline-on-the-ng-15-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/antares-launch-timeline-on-the-ng-15-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Antares launch timeline on the NG-15 mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_50237\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-50237\" style=\"width: 761px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-50237\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/NG-15_Launch_profile.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"761\" height=\"702\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/NG-15_Launch_profile.jpg 761w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/NG-15_Launch_profile-300x277.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/NG-15_Launch_profile-678x625.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 761px) 100vw, 761px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-50237\" 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-15 mission. Credit: Northrop Grumman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Northrop Grumman\u2019s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Thursday 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 12:36 p.m. EDT Saturday, Feb. 20.<\/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-15 in Northrop Grumman\u2019s station resupply manifest, will be the ninth 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-15 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 Monday, Feb. 22.<\/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-15 mission. Credit: Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman\u2019s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Thursday 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":[1871,291,1872,1608,639,1873,1748,1545],"class_list":["post-11849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-antares","tag-commercial-space","tag-crs-2","tag-cubesats","tag-cygnus","tag-education","tag-expedition-64","tag-human-spaceflight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11849"}],"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=11849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}