![\"2015-12-03-154838\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-12-03-154838-350x251.jpg\")
Two interim missions \u2013 OA-4 and OA-6 \u2013 were successfully launched on United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rockets, flying out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station SLC-41 in Florida in December 2015 and March 2016, respectively.<\/p>\nOrbital ATK\u2019s latest Cygnus resupply ship completed rendezvous and capture operations with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday morning. The OA-5 Cygnus \u2013 packed with equipment and supplies for the crew of the orbital outpost \u2013 had to wait her turn to arrive, allowing for the docking of the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft on Friday.<\/p>\n
\nCygnus OA-5 Arrival:<\/p>\n
The latest Cygnus arrival is a significant milestone for the resupply needs of the ISS, having launched on the first upgraded Antares rocket.<\/p>\n
The requirement to upgrade the Antares with new engines was due to the loss of the CRS-3 mission, which failed just seconds after lift-off from the Wallops launch site two years ago.<\/p>\n
Two interim missions \u2013 OA-4 and OA-6 \u2013 were successfully launched on United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rockets, flying out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station SLC-41 in Florida in December 2015 and March 2016, respectively.<\/p>\n
For those missions, the extended Cygnus spacecraft was pushed uphill by the Centaur upper stage. This was also the debut of the larger capacity cargo craft.<\/p>\n
During the March mission, the Centaur came to the aid of Cygnus\u2019 orbital requirements, following a shortfall in the Atlas V booster\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
With Antares making her comeback from the CRS-3 failure, the OA-5 mission marked the first time this larger Cygnus will enjoy a push from Orbital ATK\u2019s beefy upper stage.<\/p>\n
SpaceX (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n However, due to the timing of the mission, Cygnus had to \u201cloiter\u201d on orbit, waiting for the docking of Soyuz MS-02 \u2013 containing the precious cargo of three new station occupants \u2013 which was completed on Friday.<\/p>\n While patiently waiting her turn, Orbital ATK mission controllers in Dulles, Virginia, spent the early days of Cygnus\u2019 mission uploading and executing the first of a series of rendezvous phasing burns (called DV \u2013 Delta Velocity burns) to refine the spacecraft\u2019s trajectory toward the Station.<\/p>\n The first DV burn was conducted in the early phasing period. Lasting approximately 10 minutes, this was designed to raise Cygnus from its initial near-circular 230km orbit to the 400km orbit of the ISS.<\/p>\n A similarly long DV burn followed, again to raise Cygnus to its proper orbital altitude.<\/p>\n This was then followed by a planned phasing burn to align Cygnus into the exact orbital corridor of the Station. A final set of DV burns \u2013 conducted over the weekend \u2013 brought Cygnus to its \u201cGo\/No-Go for Joint-Ops\u201d decision point, which it reached roughly five hours prior to capture.<\/p>\n Once Cygnus received the \u201cgo\u201d from MCC-H (Mission Control Center \u2013 Houston) for Joint Ops, Cygnus slowly approached the Station to the Joint Targeting Reference Point (JTRP), which it arrived at just over three hours prior to capture.<\/p>\n This communication structure ensured the ability to manually abort \u2013 or at least retreat \u2013 Cygnus\u2019 approach to the Station in the event of a problem with the spacecraft or the ISS.<\/p>\n Once at the JTRP, Cygnus stopped relative motion with the ISS and awaited a second Go\/No-Go decision from MCC-H.<\/p>\n At this point, Cygnus was in the Joint Operations Phase (JOPS) of approach, as overviewed in documentation acquired by L2.<\/p>\n Approximately three hours before capture, and with MCC-H providing a \u201cgo\u201d to proceed, Cygnus performed the first of four ADV thruster burns (ADV1) to begin moving closer to Station.<\/p>\n TriDAR \u2013 tested during several Space Shuttle missions \u2013 provides Cygnus controllers with real-time visual guidance for navigation, rendezvous and docking procedures.<\/p>\n After Cygnus\u2019 completed her first two ADV burns, the ISS maneuvered to capture attitude \u2013 a 5 minute process that took place just over two hours prior to targeted capture time.<\/p>\n Then, MCC-H issued another Go\/No-Go decision regarding two more ADV burns for Cygnus, which took the spacecraft to its 250m hold point below the ISS.<\/p>\n Cygnus pulsed its thrusters and enter the KOS.<\/p>\n Up until this point, Orbital ATK controllers at their facility in Dulles had full control over Cygnus.<\/p>\n Once Cygnus entered the KOS, NASA controllers at MCC-H joined the Orbital ATK team for the tricky rendezvous and berthing of Cygnus.<\/p>\n Just under half an hour prior to capture, Cygnus arrived at the 30m Hold Point.<\/p>\n Cygnus then arrived at its capture point 12m from the ISS 8 minutes prior to the first capture attempt Expedition 49 astronauts Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency using the space station\u2019s robotic arm to grapple Cygnus.<\/p>\n Using the Station\u2019s 17.5m Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) robotic arm to grab hold of Cygnus, the capture was completed at approximately 07:28 EDT.<\/p>\n After Cygnus was firmly in the SSRMS\u2019s grip, robotic operations maneuvered the craft to Node-1 Unity (delivered by Space Shuttle Endeavour during the first ISS construction mission in December 1998) where the craft was berthed at the ISS.<\/p>\n Next week, the crew will start to unpack than 5,100 pounds of science and research in support of dozens of research investigations, as well as crew supplies and hardware.<\/p>\n Orbital name their Cygnus spacecraft after astronauts, with OA-5 being named the SS Alan Poindexter.<\/p>\n Born in November 1961, Poindexter served in the US Navy including as an F-14 pilot in the First Gulf War and later as a test pilot, before joining NASA in 1998.<\/p>\n He flew aboard two Space Shuttle missions; the first as pilot of Atlantis during the STS-122 mission that delivered the Columbus module to the International Space Station in February 2008.<\/p>\n Cygnus will remain at the space station until November 18, when the spacecraft will be used to dispose of several tons of trash during its fiery reentry into Earth\u2019s atmosphere, and conduct the spacecraft fire experiment.<\/p>\n (Images: Orbital ATK, NASA and L2 including renders from L2 artist Nathan Koga \u2013 The full gallery of Nathan\u2019s (SpaceX Dragon to ITS, SLS, Commercial Crew and more) L2 images can be *found here*)<\/p>\n (To join L2, click here: \/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Orbital ATK\u2019s latest Cygnus resupply ship completed rendezvous and capture operations with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday morning. The OA-5 Cygnus \u2013 packed with equipment and supplies for the crew of the orbital outpost \u2013 had to wait her turn to arrive, allowing for the docking of the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft on Friday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30031,"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":[2304,639,233],"class_list":["post-38934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-crs","tag-cygnus","tag-iss"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38934"}],"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=38934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2016-10-23-024654\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-23-024654-350x214.jpg\")
Both the new Antares 230 configuration and the Castor 30XL upper stage performed without issue, allowing Cygnus to begin her pursuit of the ISS.<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"ISS](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Z6.jpg\")
From this point until capture and berthing, every step of the rendezvous required a strong communications link through the JEM (Japanese Experiment Module) PROX system between Cygnus, the ISS, and ground controllers.<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/A107.jpg\")
During these proximity ADV burns, Cygnus \u2013 until capture \u2013 made use of the TriDAR vision system designed by Canadian company Neptec with the support of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.<\/p>\n![\"2016-03-26-101206\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/2016-03-26-101206-350x210.jpg\")
MCC-H then gave the \u201cgo\u201d for Cygnus to depart the 250m hold point and enter the Keep Out Sphere (KOS) of the ISS.<\/p>\n![\"2016-03-25-175704\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/2016-03-25-175704-350x244.jpg\")
Five minutes later, Cygnus received the \u201cgo\u201d to proceed to the capture point, at which time it departed the 30m Hold Point just over 15 minutes prior to capture.<\/p>\n![\"2016-10-17-144637\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-17-144637-350x312.jpg\")
This mission involves the seventh Cygnus spacecraft, designated CRS Orbital ATK 5 (OA-5).<\/p>\n