[ad_1]
Northrop Grumman's Antarès rocket will deliver a Cygnus tanker on Wednesday to launch a 1.5-day chase against the International Space Station.
The rocket's two RD-181 reactors will ignite about 3.7 seconds before takeoff of the 0A platform at Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a Virginia-owned complex at NASA Air Force Base.
The launch is timed at 16:46. EDT (20:46 GMT) Wednesday.
The two RD-181 reactors of the first stage will provide a maximum thrust of 864,000 pounds and a burn time of 3 minutes, 35 seconds, which will accelerate the rocket to over 950 km / h (3.9 km / s). and at an altitude of about 99 km), and then separate it from the Castor 30XL engine from the top floor about six seconds later.
The launch, known as NG-11 in the Northrop Grumman Station Replenishment Manifesto, will be the fifth Antares mission using new, more powerful engines, the RD-181, which the company has commissioned from the Russian engine builder NPO Energomash to replace decades old Russian devices. Built AJ26 engines are responsible for the crash of an Antares rocket a few seconds after takeoff in October 2014.
Once the first stage has been completed on the NG-11, the Antares rocket payload shield of 12.8 feet in diameter (3.9 meters) will propel itself in two halves toward T + plus 4 minutes and 11 seconds. seconds. An intermediate adapter that connects the first and second stages separates at T + plus 4 minutes 16 seconds.
The Castor 30XL solid fuel top stage of the launcher will ignite at T + plus 4 minutes, 24 seconds, and generate up to 104,300 pounds of thrust during a burn of approximately 2 minutes, 42 seconds. The second stage engine turns off at about T + plus 7 minutes 6 seconds, then deploys the Cygnus space shuttle at about T + plus 9 minutes 6 seconds.
Approximately two hours after the start of the mission, the two electrically-generating, cymbal-generating solar panels will generate electricity and the ship's propellers will begin to refine their approach to the space station. a series of trajectory correction burns, set up for a final guided laser approach on Friday.
Email of the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
[ad_2]
Source link