Atlas V rocket launches to resupply space station

Dec 7, 2015- A spacecraft carrying much-needed USA supplies blasted off toward the International Space Station for the first time in months on Sunday.

An Atlas 5 rocket successfully launched an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo spacecraft December 6 after three days of delays, resuming deliveries of essential supplies and experiments to the International Space Station by USA companies. The capsule will remain attached to the station before returning in January to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere packed with trash from the orbiting lab.

Poor weather scrubbed launch attempts Thursday and Friday, and caused a third try on Saturday to be postponed. Orbital ATK bought another company’s rocket, the veteran Atlas V, for this supply mission.

There is a lower chance of showers or cumulus clouds and ground winds are predicted to be lower and within launch rule limits.

The resupply services contract between NASA and Orbital ATK requires 10 missions to the ISS that would total 63,272 lbs of cargo.

This launch is also the first of the new Enhanced Cygnus configuration, which has a larger cargo module; and its first launch atop an Atlas V rocket, which replaces the Orbital ATK Antares now being upgraded with RD-181 engines. “With the help of our friends at ULA, who stepped forward and offered us a ride in a very short period of time, we’ve reached this point”, which is, he added, less than 12 months from the first discussion to launch.

“I can’t think of a better way to end the year, really, than to support this critical mission”, said Kevin Leslie, ULA mission manager. The liftoff marks the first resupply mission for NASA by Orbital ATK since the loss of its last Cygnus vehicle and Antares rocket in October 2014. The Cygnus is carrying more than 7,000 pounds of cargo. SpaceX, the other supplier, suffered a launch failure in June on its eighth trip.

NASA has stressed station personnel were not suffering because of the supply interruptions.

Due to the launch failures of the past 14 months, the station’s food stockpile had dwindled from NASA’s recommended six-month supply to just a couple of months’ worth of reserves.

Other payloads include a jetpack that astronauts can wear as a safety aid during spacewalks, an experiment that will test flame retardants and fire-resistant materials for use in space, a new life-science lab and more than a dozen CubeSats for deployment, plus air supply tanks, food and personal items for the crew.

“Commercial space is going to happen”, Shireman said.

The space station astronauts – two of them, including Kelly, deep into a one-year mission – have gone without American shipments since April. NASA’s 30-year shuttle program proved expensive and complicated, and, on two flights, deadly.

Cygnus is named the “SS Deke Slayton II” in memory of Deke Slayton, one of the America’s original seven Mercury astronauts.