‘Santa on his way’ to International Space Station

A burst of smoke and column of flame on Sunday trailed a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket as it powered the cargo mission from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida onto an orbital path to rendezvous with the International Space Station in three days.

“This launch begins a high tempo of cargo resupply missions supporting the International Space Station”, said Culbertson.

If successful, this would be the first USA shipment to the space station since spring.

Orbital bought another company’s rocket, the veteran Atlas V, for this supply mission. The vehicle will arrive at the space station on Thursday, and is likely to deliver roughly 4 tons of supplies, like a life sciences facility, Microsoft HoloLens sets, microsatellite launcher and other tools.

It was followed eight months later by a SpaceX rocket explosion, and the consecutive accidents effectively shut off the flow of United States supplies to astronauts in orbit.

The capsule carries more than 3,500kg (7,700lb) of food, clothing, computer gear, spacewalk equipment, science experiments and other supplies.

The enhanced Cygnus spacecraft that launched today incorporated numerous planned upgrades of the vehicle including an extended pressurized cargo module (PCM), which enables the spacecraft to carry over 50 percent more cargo than the previous version.

This is the first time that the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V has served the space station. Boeing plans to use the Atlas V to launch its commercial crew spacecraft for NASA, the Starliner, as early as 2017.

NASA is hoping the weather finally cooperates for a space station delivery already running late.

The Cygnus spacecraft will be grappled at approximately 6:10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 9. “It’s important to have a regular cadence of resupply flights, and we are looking forward to regular resupply to use the station as intended”, said Kirk Shireman, NASA’s programme manager of the ISS. The space station remains the springboard to NASA’s next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.

For the past six months NASA has relied on Russian and Japanese rockets to bring supplies to and from the space station.

NASA hired out station supply and crew missions to industry, for billions of dollars, as its 30-year shuttle program wound down.

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