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With the Antares that will conduct the debut launch under the COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation System) requirements \u2013 complete with its Cygnus mass simulator payload \u2013 rolled out to the pad, engineers conducted another WDR as part of their pre-launch flow on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The test was halted at the T-16 minute mark due to an issue with a valve on one of Antares\u2019 two AJ-26 first stage engines.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Saturday, Orbital conducted the wet dress rehearsal for the Antares rocket in preparation its Test Flight scheduled for later this week on April 17. Late in the countdown, at about T-16 minutes, the test was halted because the launch team had detected a technical anomaly in the process,\u201d noted Orbital via a statement.<\/p>\n
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![\"AJ-26](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Z79.jpg\" "\\"AJ-26")
\u201cOrbital has determined that a secondary pyro valve aboard one of the two first-stage engines used in the propellant chilldown process was not functioning properly. A replacement unit will be installed within 24 hours with the goal of maintaining the April 17 launch date.\u201d<\/p>\nThe replacement valve was shipped from its vendor \u2013 Aerojet \u2013 and was installed overnight on the vehicle sat on the pad at the Wallops launch site.<\/p>\n
Orbital were expected to test the replacement valve via another WDR on Monday. ahead of the Launch Readiness Review (LRR). However, confidence in the replacement work means no additional WDR is required.<\/p>\n
The flow will next move into the L-1 Ops on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Click here for more Orbital Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/orbital\/<\/p>\n
The A-One mission has its first launch opportunity on Wednesday, with a three hour launch window opening at 17:00 local time.<\/p>\n
Another opportunity is available on Thursday, with both days deemed to have a 30 percent chance of acceptable conditions, per sources. A third opportunity on Friday is also an option.<\/p>\n
![\"Cygnus](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Z511.jpg\" "\\"Cygnus")
Should the launch prove to be successful, Orbital will then prepare for a full-up launch \u2013 with a functioning Cygnus \u2013 as they set their sights on a debut mission to the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\nSimilar to SpaceX\u2019s COTS 2+ mission, the ORB-D flight will be the final major requirement of their COTS contract.<\/p>\n
*Click here for the full ORB-D Mission Overview*<\/p>\n
Once into their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) missions, Antares will swap the Upper Stage from the Castor 30A to an upgraded version called the Castor 30B. This will be used for the CRS-1 (Orb-1) and CRS-2 (Orb-2) ISS runs.<\/p>\n
CASTOR 30XL Milestone:<\/p>\n
The final transition for the rocket will come via the use of the CASTOR 30XL, which will power the last six CRS flights scheduled for the Antares \u2013 allowing for the transition towards the launch of extra cargo on a larger Cygnus Spacecraft.<\/p>\n
The \u201cenhanced\u201d Cygnus is scheduled to fly the last five CRS missions, boosting payload capacity to 2,700 kg.<\/p>\n
The new Upper Stage motor was recently shipped from its manufacturer, ATK, to the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee for a static fire test.<\/p>\n
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Z65.jpg\" "\\"Screenshot")
As seen via a dual camera engineering video acquired by L2, the motor successfully fired for its full duration of 156 seconds, which included gimbal checks on the motor\u2019s nozzle.<\/p>\n\u201cI am very pleased with our successful CASTOR 30XL test,\u201d said Scott Lehr, ATK vice president and general manager of Defense and Commercial Systems. \u201cIn less than two years, the ATK\/Orbital team designed and built the motor that was fired.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to seeing this stage become part of the Antares launch vehicle, supporting ISS cargo resupply missions for NASA.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"CASTOR](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Z431.jpg\" "\\"CASTOR")
The CASTOR 30XL solid rocket motor is 92 inches in diameter, 236 inches in length and weighs approximately 58,000 pounds.<\/p>\nThe nozzle is eight feet long with a submerged design with a high performance expansion ratio (56:1) and a dual density exit cone well suited for high altitude operation.<\/p>\n
Orbital Sciences Corporation contracted ATK back in April, 2011 for the development and qualification of the motor, along with the six production units that will ride with Antares and Cygnus on their ISS missions.<\/p>\n
(Images: via Orbital and L2\u2019s Antares and Cygnus Section \u2013 containing presentations, videos, images, interactive high level updates and more).<\/p>\n
(Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to view how you can support NSF\u2019s hosting costs and access over 5,500 gbs of content available on no other site).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Orbital are still hoping to launch their Antares rocket on its debut trip into space this coming week, despite an issue during its Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR). Elsewhere, the Castor 30XL upper stage motor \u2013 that will fly with Antares on later flights of the Cygnus spacecraft to the ISS \u2013 enjoyed a successful static […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30315,"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":[1871,639,7577],"class_list":["post-39874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-antares","tag-cygnus","tag-orbital"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39874"}],"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=39874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}