Technology and meteorology finally cooperated on Sunday as an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares [...]]]>

An Antares rocket lifts off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island, Virginia, on July 13, 2014. The Antares placed a Cygnus cargo spacecraft into orbit on the second of eight cargo missions to the ISS. (credit: J. Foust)

Technology and meteorology finally cooperated on Sunday as an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket successfully launched a Cygnus cargo spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station.

The Antares rocket lifted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia, at 12:52 pm EDT (1652 GMT) after a smooth countdown. Although the rocket disappeared into the clouds around a minute after launch as seen from viewing sites near the pad, the rocket continued its ascent to orbit without incident, placing Cygnus into low Earth orbit about ten minutes after liftoff.

The Cygnus, named by Orbital “SS Janice Voss” after the late astronaut, contains a payload of 1,664 kilograms of cargo to the station (NASA lists a total mass of 1,493.8 kilograms; it does not count cargo packaging, which Orbital does.) It is scheduled to be grappled by the station’s robotic arm Wednesday at 6:39 am EDT (1039 GMT).

“Things went really well,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, during a post-launch press conference Sunday afternoon. “It’s great to see this team come together.”

Orbital executive vice president Frank Culbertson said they worked some minor issues during the countdown, but otherwise it everything went smoothly. The Cygnus spacecraft is in orbit and functioning well, having already performed one post-launch burn. “All the systems on the spacecraft are operating nominally,” he said. “We’ve very excited about the fact that we’re in orbit and heading to the station.”

NASA and Orbital Sciences said Saturday they believe that weather and technical issues are behind them and will [...]]]>

The Antares rocket for the Orb-2 mission to the ISS stands on the launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia on Friday, July 11. Launch is scheduled for July 13. (credit: J. Foust)

NASA and Orbital Sciences said Saturday they believe that weather and technical issues are behind them and will be ready to launch a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station on Sunday.

Mission managers gave approval Saturday afternoon for the launch at 12:52 pm EDT (1652 GMT) Sunday of an Antares rocket on the Orb-2 commercial cargo mission to the station. That launch has been pushed back for two days after weather delayed launch preparations this week at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island, Virginia.

“It’s been a little bit of a challenge to get to this point, L-1,” said Frank Culbertson, executive vice president of Orbital Sciences, in a briefing Saturday afternoon at Wallops, referring to the milestone of one day before launch. The launch was originally planned for May but was pushed back first because of ISS schedules (including the delayed launch of a SpaceX Dragon cargo mission) and, more recently, because of concerns about the first stage engines on Antares.

Orbital officials have not gone into great detail about the concerns with the AJ26 engines that power the first stage. A failure of an AJ26 on a test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in May—an engine being tested for a future Antares mission—prompted the delay of what had been planned to be an early June launch. In early July, Orbital announced that inspections of the two AJ26 engines on this Antares had been completed, and cleared the vehicle for launch.

“I can’t get into too much detail about the actual nature of the problem,” said Mike Pinkston, Antares program manager at Orbital. “Based on our investigation, we did do some specific, targeted investigations of the fleet of engines we have, notably the two that are on the Orb-2 rocket right now, and did see what we needed to see in terms of proper configuration of some specific features of concern. Obviously, those engines have a solid test history behind them as well, so we’re very confident we’ve got two good engines on the vehicle.”

With those technical issues behind them, weather is not expected to be a factor tomorrow. Sarah Daugherty, test director at NASA Wallops Flight Facility, said forecasts call for a 90% chance of acceptable weather for Sunday’s launch. There’s a very small chance of clouds, she said, hence the less-than-100% odds of acceptable weather. “They never give us 100%,” Culbertson quipped.

One other issue raised at Saturday’s briefing deals with the range. With the launch taking place midday Sunday in the middle of summer—the height of tourist season on the Virginia coast—there’s a concern recreational boaters could enter the hazard zone for the launch, potentially scrubbing it since the launch window lasts only five minutes.

“For this one, we have taken an extra step” because of the higher number of boaters expected on the waters, Daugherty said. That includes making visits to harbors in the area to remind boaters of the launch and the keep-out zones they need to observe. “We have made those extra strides for this launch, and we’re confident that we can have a clear range at the first second of that five-minute window.”

Stormy weather this week on the Mid-Atlantic coast has struck again. Orbital announced Friday morning that it has delayed the launch of its Antares rocket [...]]]>

An Antares rocket is erected on the launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia on Thursday. Weather has postponed the launch from Saturday to Sunday. (credit: NASA)

Stormy weather this week on the Mid-Atlantic coast has struck again. Orbital announced Friday morning that it has delayed the launch of its Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo spacecraft another day, from Saturday to Sunday. Storms Thursday evening interfered with launch preparations, resulting in the delay. On Wednesday, Orbital slipped the launch from Friday to Saturday, again after storms disrupted launch preparations.

Launch is now scheduled for Sunday at 12:52 pm EDT (1652 GMT). The one-day delay will also push back Cygnus’s arrival at the station a day, to 6:37 am EDT (1037 GMT) July 16. The good news is that the unsettled weather is coming to an end (although it is fairly cloudy at Wallops around midday Friday), and should not be an issue for this weekend’s launch attempts. Fingers crossed.

After more than a month of delays caused by a problem during an engine test, Orbital confirmed late last week it would go ahead with plans to launch its next cargo mission [...]]]>

An Antares rocket lifts off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, on January 9, 2014. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

After more than a month of delays caused by a problem during an engine test, Orbital confirmed late last week it would go ahead with plans to launch its next cargo mission to the International Space Station on July 11. Launch of the Cygnus spacecraft on an Antares rocket is scheduled for 1:40 pm EDT (1740 GMT) July 11 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia. The launch had been delayed since early June after an AJ26 engine, which powers the Antares first stage, suffered an unspecified failure during a test firing at the Stennis Space Center. That particular engine was planned for use on a future Antares mission, and Orbital said inspections of the AJ26 engines on this Antares have been competed and cleared the vehicle for flight.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to launch is now the weather. The extended forecast for Wallops Island calls for isolated thunderstorms starting Wednesday through the weekend, with a 30% chance of storms each day.

The failure of an engine during a test firing last week will push back Orbital Sciences Corporation’s next launch [...]]]>

An Antares rocket lifts off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, on January 9, 2014. The next such mission has been delayed to no earlier than June 17. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The failure of an engine during a test firing last week will push back Orbital Sciences Corporation’s next launch of a cargo mission to the International Space Station by at least a week. The Antares launch of the Cygnus spacecraft, which had been scheduled for the early morning hours of June 10 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia, is now planned for no earlier than June 17, the company announced Wednesday. Orbital calls the new launch date a “planning date” that is subject to change.

Orbital delayed the launch after an AJ26 engine suffered an unspecified failure during a test firing May 22 at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The first stage of Antares is powered by two AJ26 engines, “Americanized” versions of Russian NK-33 engines provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The engine that failed in the test was being prepared for an Antares mission in 2015, but Orbital is holding off on the next launch while the investigation proceeds.

This mission, designated Orb-2, is the second of eight missions to the ISS under Orbital’s current Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. The launch was previously planned for early May, but postponed when SpaceX’s most recent CRS mission was delayed to mid-April because of a combination of vehicle and range problems.

As NASA begins to plan for a follow-on contract to transport cargo to the ISS, the agency announced plans Monday to extend its current [...]]]>

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Cygnus spacecraft departs from the ISS in February at the end of the first of that company’s eight CRS cargo missions to the station. (credit: NASA)

As NASA begins to plan for a follow-on contract to transport cargo to the ISS, the agency announced plans Monday to extend its current contracts with Orbital Science and SpaceX. In a procurement synopsis posted Monday, NASA said it will perform a no-cost extension of its current Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts with the two companies, extending the contracts from December 2015 to December 2017.

The announcement doesn’t indicate how many additional cargo missions would be awarded to the two companies; both contracts include options for additional missions. “There’s a lot of work ahead before we’d have a number of flights,” a NASA spokesperson told Space News Monday.

To date, SpaceX has performed two of the twelve CRS flights under its contracts, with a third planned for launch likely later this month, after a problem with the launch range at Cape Canaveral postponed a March 30 launch attempt. Orbital has flown one of its eight CRS missions, with a second planned for launch in early May, a date that could slip depending on when the SpaceX mission flies.

Even without additional flights, the extension would likely be needed in order to accommodate all the currently contracted flights in the original CRS contracts. A schedule of ISS missions included in the fiscal year 2015 budget justification document for NASA indicates that SpaceX’s eighth CRS mission, the last listed, is slated for launch in June 2015, while Orbital’s fifth CRS mission is planned for launching July 2015. At the projected pace of missions—about four per year for SpaceX and three per year for Orbital—the companies’ final missions under their current contracts would extend into at least mid-2016.

NASA’s current contracts with Orbital Sciences Corporation and SpaceX for [...]]]>

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Cygnus spacecraft departs the ISS on February 18, ending the first of eight such cargo transportation missions for the company. It and SpaceX are likely to compete for a new round of contracts that NASA is beginning the planning for.

NASA’s current contracts with Orbital Sciences Corporation and SpaceX for transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station, called Commercial Resupply Services (CRS), cover missions that run through 2016. With the station scheduled to remain in operations to 2020, and now to perhaps at least after the Obama Administration’s announcement of a proposed extension last month, NASA and those cargo providers have to start thinking ahead to a new round of CRS contracts.

On Friday, NASA issued a request for information (RFI) for a “follow on capability” for CRS, or CRS2. The RFI is designed to collect information form industry that would “help NASA refine and mature the follow on acquisition plan” for CRS2. The document doesn’t indicate when NASA would issue a formal RFP for commercial cargo services, but responses to the RFI are due on March 21.

According to the document, CRS2 would cover the period of 2017 through 2024, with funding of $1.0–1.4 billion per year for cargo transportation services. NASA anticipates needing the transportation of 14,250–16,750 kilograms per year of pressurized cargo and 1,500–4,000 kilogram of unpressurized cargo, and the return or disposal of a similar amount of cargo. NASA anticipates four to five missions a year to transport that cargo to and from the station.

Orbital and SpaceX are the two companies that have CRS contracts, with SpaceX preparing to launch its third CRS mission, of twelve, next month and Orbital just completing the first of eight CRS missions earlier this week. At a commercial spaceflight panel Friday night that is part of the SpaceUp Houston “unconference” this weekend, representatives of both companies said they were relatively satisfied with how the current CRS contracts are structured.

“I think the FAR Part 12 commercial contracting we have in place for the CRS program is working very well,” said SpaceX’s Garrett Reisman. That’s a reference to a section of the Federal Acquisition Regulations that cover the acquisition of commercial items. That approach, he said, is much more streamlined than other government contracting mechanisms, and closer to a commercial contract. He added that he hopes that the commercial crew transportation services will follow a similar approach for acquiring crew transportation services once a vehicle or vehicles enter service.

Jeff Siders of Orbital agreed. “The contracting mechanism has worked fine, and we’d see that continuing with no problems,” he said.

Skybox Imaging, the commercial [...]]]>

An image of the Crown Perth entertainment complex in Perth, Australia, taken by the SkySat-1 spacecraft in December, among the first images released by Skybox Imaging’s first satellite. That satellite will be joined by a fleet thanks to contracts with two major aerospace companies announced this month. (credit: Skybox Imaging)

Skybox Imaging, the commercial remote sensing company that plans to deploy a constellation of small satellites to provide high resolution images and high definition video of the Earth, is ramping up its plans to deploy that fleet of satellites. The company’s first satellite, SkySat-1, was built in-house and launched with about thirty other satellites on a Dnepr rocket last November from Russia. Now, the company is bringing in some well-known space companies to help build and launch those satellites, a departure not just for Skybox but also its partners.

Last week, Skybox and Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) announced a contract where SS/L will build 13 Skybox satellites for launch in 2015 and 2016. “By partnering with SSL, we can leverage their unique production capabilities to scale with greater cost-efficiency and speed while allowing us to focus on prototyping next generation systems to better serve our customers,” explained Skybox vice president Michael Trela in a release.

The arrangement is convenience for Skybox, not just because it frees them up from having o develop a satellite production line: SSL’s satellite manufacturing facility is in alo Alto, California, just up the 101 freeway from Skybox’s office’s in nearby Mountain View. For SSL, though, this is a expansion into a different class of satellite. The company—acquired in 2012 by Canadian company MDA—is best known for building large commercial communications satellites, weighing 6,000 kilograms or more. Each SkySat that SSL builds will weigh in at just 120 kilograms, with dimensions of 60 x 60 x 95 centimeters. “Based on SSL’s unique strengths as a satellite manufacturer and MDA’s heritage, we are developing new capabilities that will enable us to pursue other earth observation and LEO satellite opportunities in the U.S. and abroad,” SSL president John Celli said in a statement.

Yesterday, Skybox and Orbital Sciences Corporation announced a contract to launch at least some of those satellites. The contract covers the launch of six of those satellites on a Minotaur-C rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in late 2015. The contract, Orbital CEO David Thompson said in a statement, includes “options for additional launch services to support the development of Skybox’s business” beyond the one launch covered by the contract.

The Minotaur-C is a commercial version of Orbital’s existing Minotaur I rocket, placing the Minuteman ICBM motors used in the lower stages of the Minotaur with commercially-procured motors from ATK. (National space policy limits rockets that use retired ICBM motors to launching government-sponsored payloads, so as not to compete with commercially-developed vehicles.) Orbital has talked for some time about developing a commercial variant of the Minotaur to augment or even replace its existing Pegasus and Taurus rockets, and Thursday’s contract is the first announced award for the Minotaur-C.