Cygnus Spaceship’s Return-to-Flight Mission Delayed by Bad Weather

The Atlas 5 carrying the Cygnus cargo tug leaves the Vertical Integration Facility to head to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Dec 2.

Perched on top of the rocket is Orbital’s fourth Cygnus spacecraft, an upgraded capsule filled with more than 7,700 pounds (3,500 kg) of food, supplies and science experiments for the station.

Mission Description:Cygnus is a low-risk design incorporating elements drawn from Orbital ATK and its partners’ existing, flight-proven spacecraft technologies.

Under the CRS contract with NASA, Orbital ATK will deliver approximately 62,000 pounds of cargo to the space station over 10 missions through 2018. Forecasts call for a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather at launch time December 3 as a frontal system moves to the south, degrading to 40 percent should the launch slip to December 4. (NYSE:BA) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT), was scheduled to launch yesterday at 22:55 GMT.

The most recent prior United States commercial resupply mission to the station, by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in June, also ended in an explosion.

While NASA’s worldwide partners have helped keep supplies flowing to astronauts aboard the station, this will be the first U.S.-based attempt since then.

The United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V – a mighty successor of the rocket used to put John Glenn in orbit in 1962 – has never been used before on a space station mission.

In the wake of the failure, Orbital managers made a decision to discard the 1970s-era Russian engines used in the five Antares rockets launched to that point and to replace them with state-of-the-art RD-181 engines, also built in Russia. The craft is carrying experiments and more supplies, like food, for the crew on board, according to NASA.

However, in October previous year, a rocket to supply the ISS from Orbital Sciences was destroyed in a launch explosion. A Russian resupply mission, in fact, is scheduled just before Christmas.

“Within a few days, actually, we had a plan”, he said. Orbital ATK bought another company’s rocket, the Atlas, for this supply mission.

The Cygnus capsule is named after Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton, a commercial space pioneer.