Antares rocket transferred to Virginia launch pad for a refueling flight – Spaceflight Now

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A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket came out of its hangar Monday night, carrying a self-propelled transport vehicle for a long drive to get to Launch Pad 0A in Wallops Island, Virginia, for a dawn takeoff on Thursday with a ship Cygnus refueller heading to the international space. Station.

However, rainy weather and clouds at the launch base of the east coast of Virginia could prevent a launch on Thursday, with forecasters predicting a 70% probability of conditions violating the launch criteria of the Antares rocket.

The launch of the Antares two-stage rocket is scheduled at 0449: 38 (9:49:38) ET from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport 0A, located at the base of the Airops Flight Mission. The NASA.

Weather conditions are not expected to improve much, but Wallops meteorologists predict a 65% chance that weather conditions will prevent take-off, again due to clouds and the increased risk of gusting winds.

"A low pressure zone will develop rapidly Wednesday on the Great South, bringing rain showers in the southeastern United States during the day," Wallops meteorological team said in a forecast released Tuesday morning. . "These downpours will progress northeast on Wednesday night to Thursday morning, likely through our launch window on Thursday morning. This approaching front will bring thick clouds and a chance of rain for T-0.

"After the launch window, the rain will become strong sometimes with stronger and stronger winds during the day of Thursday," wrote the forecast team. "Wind conditions will continue until Friday, with the winds easing Friday night."

The conditions for a launch attempt on Saturday could be much improved, with only 5% chance that weather conditions violate the launch time regulation.

The Antares rocket appeared on Monday night from the Wallops Island Horizontal Integration Center and drove a multi-wheeled carrier along a runway leading south to Launch Pad 0A. The 1.5-kilometer drive took place under constant rain and the ground crews guided the rocket onto the launch pad up to the launch pad located on platform 0A, where the Antares launcher was raised vertically Tuesday at dawn.

The Antares rocket emerges from Northrop Grumman's horizontal integration base on Wallops Island on Monday night. Its two first-stage RD-181 engines are visible in this view. Credit: NASA / Joel Kowsky

The latest connections between the Antares rocket transporter and the launch pad power and data sources were scheduled for Tuesday, followed by closures and pre-countdown tests expected to begin Wednesday. evening.

The rocket will be launched with Northrop Grumman's Cygnus Supply Vessel, christened S. John Young in honor of the Commanding Officer of the Shuttle on the Apollo Space Shuttle, who died in January.

The technicians have finished loading equipment into the pressurized compartment of the Cygnus spacecraft in recent days and then installed the nose cone of the Antares rocket on the spacecraft before Monday night's launch.

The Cygnus Space Shuttle will bring supplies, experiments and computer equipment to the space station. The Antares rocket, powered by two Russian-made, kerosene-fueled RD-181 engines on the first stage and a US-made solid-fueled upper stage, will deliver the cargo carrier in a preliminary orbit about nine minutes after take-off.

Assuming the freighter takes off on Thursday or Friday, it will arrive at the research complex in orbit Sunday at 16:35 EST (0935 GMT), when astronauts seize the free-flying spacecraft with the station's robotic arm.

Northrop Grumman has named the supply ship Cygnus, which will launch S.S. John Young on Thursday. Credit: Northrop Grumman

In addition to the crew's food and supplies, the payload onboard the Cygnus Space Shuttle includes a 3D printer and recycling device built by Tethers Unlimited, a Seattle-based private company. The device is designed to "turn plastic waste into a high-quality 3D printer filament to create tools and materials, an essential capability for future long-term space missions beyond low Earth orbit" , according to a summary of NASA's mission.

Other experiments aboard the freighter include an investigation into the solidification of the cement in microgravity and a study of how the perception of the movement, the position of the body and the distance of the objects by an astronaut changes in the space.

The upcoming mission will be the eleventh launch of a Cygnus spacecraft transporting cargo to the International Space Station. It will include a test flight in 2013 and a failed launch of Antares in 2014 that destroyed the supply ship a few seconds after takeoff.

The mission, dubbed NG-10, is the first Cygnus flight since Northrop Grumman's acquisition of Orbital ATK, which has developed and completed previous missions under a 11-contract NASA contract worth nearly $ 2.9 billion.

Starting at NG-12, scheduled for launch in late 2019, Northrop Grumman will be launching a commercial replenishment service tracking contract, securing the company a minimum of six additional flights by 2024.

NASA has signed a similar contract with SpaceX for the transportation of goods and the space agency has awarded Sierra Nevada Corp. a resupply contract for deliveries and logistic returns with the aid of the Dream Chaser space plane from the end of 2020.

The space shuttle Cygnus to be launched Thursday will remain docked at the space station until February, when it will leave several CubeSats NanoRacks deployer before entering the atmosphere of the Earth and burn with several tons of waste packed by the crew of the station.

More photos of the rainy deployment of the Antares rocket are shown below.