Antares Rocket launches the Cygnus freighter on a marathon mission for NASA

WALLOPS ISLAND, Virginia – An Antares rocket flew into the afternoon sky over Virginia on Wednesday, April 17, carrying tons of NASA supplies – and 40 intrepid mice – to the International Space Station.

The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket and its rocket Cygnus A spaceship launched into the cosmos from the mid-Atlantic regional spaceport to NASA's Wallops flight facility, kicked off a two-day trip to the space station. The takeoff took place at 16:46 EDT (20:46 GMT).

If all goes well, the spacecraft will arrive at the lab in orbit early Friday, April 19 to deliver 7,600 books. (3447 kilograms) of scientific equipment and supplies for the six-person crew of the International Space Station. The mission, called NG-11, is the eleventh cargo flight of NASA by Northrop Grumman and will be the longest company to date.

"About half of the cargo brought by Cygnus is dedicated to science for us in the International Space Station," said Pete Hasbrook, chief scientist for the NASA space station, at a pre-launch briefing . This equipment will support at least 30 of nearly 300 ongoing studies on the in-orbit lab, he added.

Big science on Cygnus

Mice aboard Cygnus are at the heart of such a study that aims to test the effectiveness of a tetanus vaccine. Rodents are divided into two groups of 20; half will receive the vaccine in space and the other 20 will not receive it. Scientists will study mice to see how animals respond to the vaccine once back on Earth.

Other wild scientific experiments on Cygnus include tests on two robotic systems; Seeker, which is designed to look for air leakage on the space station, and Astrobee, which aims to help station staff in such tasks as inventory and maintenance. There is material to build a blank ZBLAN fiber optic cables in the spaceand a prototype new air scrubber that removes carbon dioxide from the station's atmosphere.

Outside the Cygnus is a series of tiny satellites that will be deployed after the departure of the Space Shuttle this summer. These 60 so-called ThinSats (tiny satellites) were built by primary and secondary students; A NASA CubeSat was built by students from the University of Indiana and the University of Illinois, said Northrop Grumman officials.

(Image: © NASA)

"ThinSats are small STEM satellites built by students from 70 schools in nine states," said Kurt Eberly, vice president of Antares for Northrop Grumman, at the pre-launch briefing. "Once the thin maps are deployed, the students will collect and analyze the data transmitted by their satellite for about five days before desorbing them and burning them in the atmosphere."

Nearly 250 students from ThinSat schools were expected at the launch today. (In fact, the Wallops Flight Facility managers were expecting a record crowd – thousands – because of the mid-afternoon launch time and of immaculate quality , with a 95% probability of obtaining optimal weather forecasts.)

And then there is the Cygnus himself.

A Cygnus marathon flight

The Orbiting Cygnus now includes a series of upgrades that Northrop Grumman has tested on this flight, to increase the versatility of the spacecraft in future missions.

First, there is the "Pop-Top" nose cone, a detachable end of the Antares rocket payload fairing that allows Northrop Grumman engineers to access the inside of the spacecraft and to add any late cargo. For this mission, this late cargo consisted of mice, which had been loaded on board about 24 hours before launch.

Then there is the spaceship itself, which will perform an unprecedented marathon mission on this flight.

The Cygnus spacecraft generally went to the station for a few months, then broke off and burned in the Earth 's atmosphere. During this mission, Cygnus will be released from the station in June and will remain in orbit for up to seven months to test its ability to support ultra-long space missions.

"We will begin a long-term assignment for Cygnus, where we will demonstrate its ability to fly for long periods in space, where it can constitute an excellent testbed for scientific experiments, [and] Frank DeMauro, Vice President and General Manager of Space Systems for Northrop Grumman, said at the briefing on new technologies for deep space exploration. environment in microgravity that Cygnus will provide. "

This Cygnus is equipped with a new control moment gyro that should allow the spacecraft to maintain its orientation and position in the space without using the vital fuel of its propellers. The machine has improved avionics for long flights, DeMauro said.

Northrop Grumman hopes to keep Cygnus in orbit until at least the fall, when another Cygnus spacecraft will launch its own cargo mission at the station.

"We will also demonstrate Cygnus' ability to fly with two vehicles at the same time in space," said DeMauro.

The NG-11 Cygnus is NASA's eleventh flight Cygnus and the ninth to take off from Pad-0A at Wallops. Northrop Grumman Corp. (formerly Orbital Sciences and Orbital ATK) has launched three missions on United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. In 2014, an Antares rocket exploded just after takeoff of Pad-0A, destroying its Cygnus payload.

The NG-11 mission is also Northrop Grumman's last cargo mission for NASA under the agency's Commercial Resupply Services 1 program. To mark the occasion, Northrop Grumman named the NG-11 Cygnus the S.S. Roger Chaffee in honor of NASA astronaut Roger Chaffee, killed in the Apollo 1 fire alongside his teammates Gus Grissom and Ed White, Jr.

NASA selected Northrop Grumman (under its name Orbital Sciences) and SpaceX as its first commercial freight forwarders in 2008. In 2016, Northrop Grumman received a new contract for at least six other freight missions under the program. Commercial Resupply Services 2 from NASA. SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Space Systems also received CRS-2 contracts with NASA.

It's a busy time for freighter trips to the space station. In addition to the Cygnus replenishment flight, SpaceX will launch its own delivery mission to the station next week. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and unarmed cargo freighter Dragon are expected to launch the CRS-17 cargo mission for NASA on April 26th from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida.

Editor's note: You can watch the Cygnus Space Shuttle arrive at the ISS here Friday from 4 pm EDT (0800 GMT). The capture of Cygnus is scheduled at 5:30 pm EDT (9:30 am GMT), with the berthing cover scheduled to begin at 7:00 am EDT (11:00 am GMT).

Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him. @tariqjmalik. follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook.