{"id":15653,"date":"2016-03-14T21:25:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T13:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/atlas-5-rocket-and-cygnus-freighter-mated-for-next-weeks-cargo-launch\/"},"modified":"2016-03-14T21:25:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T13:25:56","slug":"atlas-5-rocket-and-cygnus-freighter-mated-for-next-weeks-cargo-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/atlas-5-rocket-and-cygnus-freighter-mated-for-next-weeks-cargo-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas 5 rocket and Cygnus freighter mated for next week\u2019s cargo launch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"File
File photo of Cygnus lift atop an Atlas 5. Credit: NASA-KSC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 Bound for the International Space Station with a max load of fresh supplies, a commercially-operated cargo ship was mounted atop its booster rocket today for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on March 22.<\/p>\n

The Cygnus, produced by Orbital ATK, is filled with nearly four tons of food, equipment and science hardware for the station and its residents.<\/p>\n

The craft will be lofted into orbit by a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket for a three-day trek to the station. Liftoff on March 22 will be possible during a 30-minute window opening at 11:05:48 p.m. EDT (0305:48 GMT).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be the second launch for the Atlas to support the International Space Station program. We are very excited to support this particular mission,\u201d said Si Song, ULA\u2019s Atlas 5 spacecraft integration lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will launch at T-0 and about 21 minutes after launch we will separate the spacecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

In preparation for the flight, Cygnus was moved from its fueling depot at Kennedy Space Center\u2019s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to the Atlas rocket\u2019s assembly building at the Cape\u2019s Complex 41 early this morning.<\/p>\n

A heavy-duty crane lifted the vessel, already shrouded in the rocket\u2019s 14-foot-diameter, 45-foot-long aluminum nose cone, into the Vertical Integration Facility for mating to the Centaur upper stage.<\/p>\n

The finished product is a rocket that stands 194 feet tall. A mobile launching platform will roll the vehicle out to the pad next Monday.<\/p>\n

ULA CEO Tory Bruno conducted his President\u2019s Mission Readiness Review last week that examined hardware pedigrees, technical issues on that bird and all sibling hardware, quality data and independent review, he tweeted.<\/p>\n

\"The
The most recent Cygnus at the space station. Credit: Astronaut Tim Copra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cygnus is headed to the station as part of NASA\u2019s Commercial Resupply Services program that hired Orbital ATK to carry cargo to the outpost from U.S. soil after retirement of the space shuttles. <\/p>\n

This is Orbital ATK\u2019s sixth Cygnus built, the fifth operational mission to launch and the second in three months. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very successful OA-4 mission. We launched that in December and just de-orbited that and here we are, ready to launch the next one,\u201d said Dan Tani, former space shuttle and station astronaut and now the senior director for mission and cargo operations at Orbital ATK.<\/p>\n

The cylindrical freighter is carrying:<\/p>\n

-Crew supplies: 2,511 pounds
\n-Vehicle hardware: 2,443 pounds
\n-Science utilization: 1,713 pounds
\n-EVA gear: 346 pounds
\n-Computer resources: 216 pounds<\/p>\n

The hatch on Cygnus was closed for flight on March 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce this Cygnus gets encapsulated (March 9), we are pretty much hands off our vehicle until we make contact with it in orbit and command the on-orbit initialization,\u201d Tani said.<\/p>\n

The Cygnus will have three favorable launch opportunities \u2014 March 22, 23 and 24 \u2014 before facing a series of scheduling conflicts with a Russian Progress and SpaceX Dragon slated to launch at the end of March and early April for the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we launch on the 22nd or 23rd (of March), our first two launch opportunities, both of those days will get us to the ISS on the 26th. If we go to the 24th, we\u2019ll get there on the 28th. Then things get difficult on the space station,\u201d Tani said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been in conversation with them about what our options are and how they can be a little flexible. Of course it is in their best interest to get us docked and unloaded. So we are looking at 22nd, 23rd, 24th to get off, then we\u2019ll cross that bridge if we get to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Atlas 5 rocket\u2019s remarkable string of 26 consecutive missions to launch on the first attempt after being fueled was snapped in December. The Cygnus deployment encountered three straight scrubs due to foul weather conditions.<\/p>\n

See earlier Cygnus OA-6 coverage.<\/p>\n

Our Atlas archive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

File photo of Cygnus lift atop an Atlas 5. Credit: NASA-KSC CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 Bound for the International Space Station with a max load of fresh supplies, a commercially-operated cargo ship was mounted atop its booster rocket today for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on March 22. The Cygnus, produced by Orbital ATK, is filled with […]<\/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":[724,3684,286,2304,639,717,3169,3672],"class_list":["post-15653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-atlas-5","tag-av-064","tag-cargo","tag-crs","tag-cygnus","tag-international-space-station","tag-lift-and-mate","tag-oa-6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15653"}],"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=15653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}