The launch of Antares from Virginia delayed to Friday – Spaceflight Now

Predictions for low ceilings, thick clouds and rainy weather on Thursday prompted NASA and Northrop Grumman officials to fend off the launch of an Antares rocket and a refueling vessel. from the space station on the east coast of Virginia to Friday morning.

Officials launching NASA's Wallops flight installation decided on Wednesday morning to override a launch opportunity on Thursday morning and instead aim for the launch of the Antares rocket Friday at 04:23:55 EST (09:23:55 GMT) carrying a cargo Cygnus to the International Space Station.

The launch before dawn on Friday is scheduled for the time when the space station's orbital plane – or ground runway – will be above the launch pad in Virginia.

The delay sets up double launches Friday from opposite sides of the world to replenish the space station into orbit more than 400 km above the Earth.

Less than nine hours after the planned departure of Antares from the east coast of the United States, a Russian Soyuz rocket is due to take off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:14 pm. EST (1814 GMT). The Soyuz will send a supply and refueling cargo ship to the space station.

Assuming both cargo missions launch on Friday, they must arrive at the station on Sunday.

The Wallops weather team briefed the managers during a review of the launch preparation on Wednesday, and official weather forecasts predicted a 90% probability that morning conditions would violate the criteria for launching the Antares rocket.

The weather is expected to improve a bit later on Thursday, with forecasters predicting a 55% chance that cloudy ceilings or ground winds will prevent takeoff during the five-minute launch window on Friday.

The Antares launch team will meet again on Thursday morning to decide if the forecasts are good enough to warrant a countdown and a launch attempt on Friday morning. Another launch opportunity is available on Saturday, while weather conditions are better, with less than 5% chance that conditions are not prohibited.

If the Northrop Grumman Antares rocket takes off on Friday, the unmanned cargo ship Cygnus tucked into the launcher payload fairing will reach the space station Sunday around 4:35 am EST (09:35 GMT). Astronauts Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Alexander Gerst will use the robotic arm of the Canadian-built station to capture the Cygnus, which will be moored to the Unity module of the research station in orbit for a three-month stay.

The Progress MS-10 feeder should stop at 14:30 with the station's Zvezda service module. EST (1930 GMT) Sunday, about 10 hours after the arrival of the Swan.

If both missions arrive at the station on Sunday, it will be the first time for nearly 20 years that two replenishment laboratories make deliveries on the same day.

The space station employs a crew of three after a Russian cosmonaut and a NASA astronaut have interrupted their launch on Oct. 11 as a result of a recall of S0yuz. On December 3, another team of three people is preparing to launch Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket.

Back-to-back ship arrivals Sunday will be a busy day, but the station's crew, led by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, will be able to handle the arrivals, said Joel Montalbano, NASA Space Station Program Manager.

After Auñón-Chancellor captured the Cygnus with the robotic arm – with the help of Gerst – the station's commander will assist Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev in monitoring Progress's automated radar-guided approach.

"Alexander Gerst will help his Russian colleague for the Progress vehicle," said Montalbano on Wednesday. "Normally this is an automated connection, but they must be ready to make a remote connection."

Montalbano said that Gerst had received retraining training to assist Prokopyev during the docking of Progress, a job that usually comes down to a second Russian crew member.

"We do not see any problem," Montalbano said of the cargo arrivals the same day. "We worked with the crew. We will adjust their schedules a bit, but no major disruptions. "

If the launch of Antares continues until Saturday, the rendezvous of the space shuttle Cygnus with the space station would be postponed to Monday, a little more than half a day after the stowage of Progress.

Montalbano stated that some research activities had been redefined, but that their activities had not been significantly affected.

"As far as science is concerned, with two fewer people … you will do a little less onboard activities, but it is only for a short time, and in fact, the members of The crew on board took it up, and they really worked hard and picked up what needed to be done, "he said." Any science or research that's time-consuming, is underway, and we redefine the priorities of the other activities, so from this point of view, we are doing really well. "

The Cygnus tanker is expected to deliver supplies and experiments to the space station, including a plastic recycler and a 3D printer to improve manufacturing capabilities in the space, as well as an experiment to assess the capability of the space station. human body to perceive the movement. , orientation and distance changes in microgravity.

The replenishment mission will mark the eleventh launch of a Cygnus spacecraft carrying cargo to the International Space Station, including a test flight in 2013 and a failed launch of Antares in 2014 that destroyed the supply ship a few seconds after take-off.

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.

SpaceX also launches cargoes to the space station for NASA, and the space agency has asked Sierra Nevada Corp. to begin replenishing the research complex at the end of 2020.

The next SpaceX replenishment is scheduled for December 4th at Cape Canaveral.

Email of the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.