Thales Alenia Space of Italy has delivered the second of nine pressurized cargo-supply modules for the international space station to Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Wallops Island, VA, facility. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By: Tariq Malik
Published: 04/20/2013 04:53 PM EDT on SPACE.com
The launch debut of a new privately built rocket will have to wait at least one more day after strong winds thwarted an attempted liftoff on Saturday (April 20).
The unmanned Antares rocket was poised to launch into orbit Saturday afternoon from a new seaside pad at NASA‘s Wallops Flight Facility along Virginia’s Eastern Shore when the foul weather intervened. The rocket’s next chance to launch occurs Sunday (April 21) at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).
Orbital Sciences had hoped to launch Antares at 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday, but unacceptably strong winds in the upper atmosphere — which could pose a risk to the rocket in mid-flight — prompted them to delay liftoff by an hour at first, then call off the attempt altogether. [LaunchPad Photos: 1st Antares Rocket Ready to Fly]
It is the second delay in three days for Antares’ debut launch. A minor equipment glitch led Orbital officials to call off a launch try on Wednesday (April 17) when a data cable at the pad separated from the rocket earlier than planned.
Built by the Dulles, Va.-based spaceflight firm Orbital Sciences Corp., the Antares rocket is a 13-story booster designed to launch the company’s unmanned Cygnus spacecraft on cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station. Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract to provide at least eight cargo delivery flights to the station using Cygnus and Antares.
For this first flight, the Antares rocket will not be carrying an active Cygnus spacecraft into orbit. Instead, the rocket is topped with a cylindrical “mass simulator” that mimics the shape and weight of an actual Cygnus vehicle, officials said. The mockup is also equipped with 70 sensors to measure the effects of launch on an Antares vehicle.
Orbital has also added three tiny NASA satellites — coffee-cup-size Phonesats — and a small commercial cubesat called Dove-1 to the mass simulator for this test flight. The miniature satellites will be deployed in orbit after launch, Orbital officials said.
NASA‘s Phonesats are experiments designed to test how well commercial smartphones can be used as the main computers on cheap satellites.
Orbital Sciences is one of two American spaceflight companies with NASA contracts for commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station. The other firm is Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., which has a $1.6 billion contract to fly at least 12 cargo delivery missions to the space station using its Falcon 9 rockets and robotic Dragon space capsules.
SpaceX launched its first test flight to the station in May 2012 and has flown two official cargo deliveries since then. NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011 and is relying on private spacecraft to keep the space station stocked with supplies. The space agency also plans to begin flying American astronauts to the station on commercial spacecraft by 2017.
Filed under: Technology, U.S. Government, Aerospace & Defense, Transportation & Logistics
By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The SpaceX Dragon capsule returned to Earth on Tuesday with a full science load from the International Space Station.
The privately owned cargo ship splashed down in the Pacific, off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, five hours after leaving the orbiting lab. The California-based SpaceX confirmed the Dragon’s safe arrival via Twitter.
“Special delivery! Dragon now being recovered in the Pacific,” the company said in a tweet.
The capsule brought back more than 1 ton of science experiments and old station equipment. It’s the only supply ship capable of two-way delivery. NASA is paying SpaceX more than $1 billion for a dozen resupply missions.
The unmanned capsule will be shipped to Los Angeles — arriving Wednesday night — and then trucked to Texas for unloading.
Earlier in the day, astronauts released the unmanned capsule from the end of the space station’s giant robot arm. The 250-mile (400-kilometer)-high parting was a poignant moment for the three space station’s residents, who helped to snare the Dragon three weeks earlier.
“Sad to see the Dragon go,” astronaut Thomas Marshburn told Mission Control. “Performed her job beautifully. Heading back to her lair. Wish her all the best for the splashdown today.”
The Dragon used old-NASA-style parachutes to plop into the ocean; company officials indicated all appeared to go well during the re-entry.
SpaceX launched the capsule from Cape Canaveral at the beginning of March. Mechanical trouble delayed the capsule’s arrival at the space station by a day. SpaceX flight controllers at company headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., managed to fix the problem within hours.
Bad weather at mission’s end in the Pacific recovery zone kept it in orbit an extra day.
Within hours of the splashdown, NASA planned to retrieve the science samples meticulously collected over the weeks and months by space station astronauts, as well as experiments that flew up with Dragon, including hundreds of flowering weeds. Mouse stem cells stayed behind on the space station, at the request of the Japanese researchers.
Old space station equipment and other items aboard the Dragon will be removed by SpaceX in McGregor, Texas. In all, more than 1 ton of gear — 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) — was loaded into the capsule.
SpaceX — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — is run by billionaire Elon Musk, who made his fortune as a co-creator of PayPal. He also owns the electric car maker Tesla Motors.
This was the second flight of a Dragon to the space station under the $1.6 billion contract with NASA, and the third delivery mission altogether for SpaceX. The next flight is slated for late autmn.
A competitor, Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) of Virginia, plans a test flight of its Antares rocket and a dummy payload next month. That …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
The Antares rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp., will launch unmanned Cygnus cargo ships to the International Space Station. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
