Northrop Grumman kicked off their 2021 launch manifest with the flight of an Antares rocket delivering the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia at 12:36:50 EST (17:36:50 UTC) Saturday, 20 February 2021.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft then conducted a rendezvous with the Station two days later, where it was berthed to the Unity module using Canadarm2. This uncrewed resupply mission delivers 3,700 kg to the ISS, consisting of CubeSats, science experiments, Station equipment, and crew supplies.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The NG-15 mission<\/b><\/p>\n
Production for this particular flight began a little more than two years ago with the start of long-lead material purchases and integrated components needed for the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft.<\/p>\n
While overall production and integration of an Antares\/Cygnus mission can take place on a shorter time span, Kurt Eberly, Director Space Launch Programs, Northrop Grumman, related that the additional time is built-in not just for production delays but also to accommodate the potential of NASA requesting an advancement to a launch date, which has happened before. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that we\u2019re there and ready to launch when NASA needs us. We want to put a little margin on things. We don\u2019t want there to just be a bar on a schedule. We know that sometimes NASA wants to pull us forward a little bit, so we try to be ready a little bit early so we can offer that and be there for when NASA needs us.\u201d <\/p>\n
After integration with the Cygnus spacecraft and initial cargo load operations in the horizontal integration facility for this mission were complete, the entire Antares 230+ vehicle and payload were rolled to the launchpad on 16 February, where the entire rocket was taken vertical for pad checkouts and Wallops Range communications checks.<\/p>\n
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