Orbital Launch of Resupply Mission for Space Station Is Delayed

UPDATE (12/3/15, 6:42 p.m. ET): Due to poor weather conditions, tonight’s #OA4 #Cygnus launch has been scrubbed. Meteorologists predict just a 30 percent chance of favorable conditions, with the main concerns being precipitation, clouds and ground winds. The next opportunity is at 5:33 p.m. (2233 GMT) on Friday. In the meantime, it has paid United Launch Alliance to launch Cygnus on an Atlas V rocket.

According to NASA blogs, Orbital ATK, NASA commercial partner, is launching its fourth contracted mission to the International Space Station today under the Commercial Resupply Services contract.

“Atlas V has put satellites in orbit reliably and we are thrilled to be partners both with ULA on the Atlas and with NASA for to fly Cygnus to deliver this important cargo to the space station”, said Dan Tani, a former astronaut who is now Orbital ATK’s senior director of Mission and Cargo Operations.

Mission Description:Cygnus is a low-risk design incorporating elements drawn from Orbital ATK and its partners’ existing, flight-proven spacecraft technologies. As per the contract the Orbital company is required to carry at least 44,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of 2016.

The company’s Antares rocket blew up in October 2014, a few minutes after liftoff. Orbital Sciences has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to make such unmanned cargo runs (SpaceX, Elon Musk’s California-based company, has a similar contract).

“This is step one in the return-to-flight plan”, said Mike Pinkston, Orbital’s Antares program manager.

If all goes well, astronauts will use the station’s robotic arm to grab the cargo capsule on Sunday.

The Atlas V has a near-perfect record. The two previous failures (plus the loss of Russian Progress supply ship last April) means the ISS only has enough food to last until the spring.

“Of course, there’s still technical issues because they’re recovering from an accident as well”, Shireman said. The International Space Station has been programme is a joint programme of the NASA, Russian space agency ROSCOSMOS, Japenese Space agency JAXA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).