{"id":15994,"date":"2015-10-14T19:31:19","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T11:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cygnus-service-module-arrives-in-florida-for-station-flight\/"},"modified":"2015-10-14T19:31:19","modified_gmt":"2015-10-14T11:31:19","slug":"cygnus-service-module-arrives-in-florida-for-station-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cygnus-service-module-arrives-in-florida-for-station-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Cygnus service module arrives in Florida for station flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Cygnus service module for the OA-4 space station resupply mission arrives at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. Credit: Orbital ATK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The power and propulsion section of Orbital ATK\u2019s next Cygnus supply ship, featuring new solar panel and fuel tank designs, arrived at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday to be joined with a cargo module for a Dec. 3 launch to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The shipment comes nearly one year after Orbital ATK\u2019s last space station supply flight crashed seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, aboard the company\u2019s own Antares booster. Orbital ATK engineers blame the failure on one of the Antares main engines, and officials purchased two Atlas 5 rockets from United Launch Alliance to keep the Cygnus missions flying while a new engine model is added to the Antares.<\/p>\n

The Cygnus service module was trucked from Orbital ATK\u2019s headquarters in Dulles, Virginia, where it departed its factory Monday. The spacecraft arrived at Kennedy\u2019s Space Station Processing Facility for attachment to a pressurized cargo module made by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy.<\/p>\n

The supply section traveled from Italy to Florida by ship, reaching the launch base Aug. 10. The pressurized module will carry up more than 7,700 pounds (3,500 kilograms) of food, provisions and experiments for the space station and its six-person crew.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Cygnus service module is pictured at Orbital ATK\u2019s Dulles, Virginia, headquarters before shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations. Credit: Orbital ATK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Launch is currently set for Dec. 3 at 6:02 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 41 launch pad. The launch window extends 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

The service module for the Dec. 3 launch includes upgrades to its power-producing solar panels and propellant tanks. Beginning with the next mission, future Cygnus spaceships will fly with fan-shaped unfoldable \u201cUltraFlex\u201d solar arrays that are lighter than the conventional wing-like solar panels made by Dutch Space fitted to previous Cygnus cargo craft.<\/p>\n

The solar panel switch is an instance of in-sourcing by Orbital ATK. Circular UltraFlex solar arrays, which measure about 12 feet (3.7 meters) in diameter on Cygnus, are made in-house by the company\u2019s space components division at a facility in Goleta, California.<\/p>\n

The Thales-built pressurized cargo module is also extended about 3 feet (1 meter) in length on all future Cygnus missions, adding more volume for supplies.<\/p>\n

\"The
The mission patch for Orbital ATK\u2019s OA-4 space station resupply flight. Credit: Collectspace.com \/ Orbital ATK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Designated OA-4, the mission is the fourth of 10 flights under a commercial contract between Orbital ATK and NASA. The contract allows the space agency to order as many missions as will fit under a $3.1 billion cost cap, and officials have not disclosed the worth of three extra cargo flights added on top of the deal\u2019s original $1.9 billion value.<\/p>\n

A fifth Cygnus flight is on track for launch around March 10 aboard another Atlas 5 booster. It will be called OA-6 in Orbital ATK\u2019s naming scheme.<\/p>\n

Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK\u2019s space systems group, told Spaceflight Now last week the Antares rocket is scheduled to return to flight from its Virginia launch site in May 2016 on the OA-5 cargo delivery sortie.<\/p>\n

Orbital ATK paid for the two Atlas 5 missions out of its own capital reserves, at no cost to the U.S. government, officials said.<\/p>\n

\n
Spaceflight Now members can read a transcript of our full interview with Frank Culbertson. Become a member today and support our coverage.<\/h6>\n
\n
<\/h5>\n

\u201cThese are exciting times for the Cygnus team at Orbital ATK,\u201d Culbertson said in a statement. \u201cWith OA-4 set to launch in December and at least three additional missions to the Space Station planned in 2016, we remain solidly on schedule to meet our CRS cargo requirements for NASA. Our team\u2019s performance in meeting milestones on an accelerated timeline demonstrates the company\u2019s flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the coming weeks, technicians will mate the Cygnus service module with its cargo element, then transfer it to a nearby fueling facility for loading of maneuvering propellant, final time-critical cargo items and encapsulation inside the Atlas 5 rocket\u2019s nose cone.<\/p>\n

Ground crews will transfer the Cygnus inside the Atlas payload fairing to the rocket\u2019s Vertical Integration Facility in November to be hoisted atop the Atlas 5 for launch.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s next Cygnus supply ship, featuring new solar panel and fuel tank designs, arrived at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday to be joined 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":[724,3800,639,717,1602,428,3801,2899],"class_list":["post-15994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-atlas-5","tag-av-061","tag-cygnus","tag-international-space-station","tag-iss-cargo","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-oa-4","tag-orbital-atk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994"}],"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=15994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}