Fwd: Test flight of Antares rocket set for Wednesday evening

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: April 17, 2013 1:39:46 PM GMT-06:00
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Test flight of Antares rocket set for Wednesday evening

 

 

 

Test flight of Antares rocket set for Wednesday evening
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
April 16, 2013

Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to launch its first Antares rocket Wednesday, moving the company a step closer to supplying the International Space Station with cargo and making history at an enduring launch base on Virginia's coast.

The Antares rocket on the launch pad at Wallops Island, Va. Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.

The 13-story rocket will take off in a three-hour window opening at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), rising from a new seaside launch pad on a 10-minute flight into Earth orbit.

It will be the first launch in a public-private partnership between NASA and Orbital Sciences, in which NASA is investing $288 million to help the Virginia-based company develop the Antares launcher and a resupply craft named Cygnus to service the space station.

Powered by two Russian-built, U.S.-owned engines manufactured more than 40 years ago, the Antares first stage will propel the rocket to more than 9,800 mph in less than four minutes. A solid-fueled second stage will fire a few minutes later to accelerate the launcher into orbit more than 150 miles above Earth.

"We will lift off with approximately 750,000 pounds of thrust and weighing about 600,000 pounds," said Frank Culbertson, executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group. "It will not race off the pad, but it will accelerate very quickly once it gets going."

The test launch is supposed to wring out any design problems with the Antares rocket, collecting extensive data with a suite of 72 accelerometers, microphones, thermometers, thermocouples and strain gauges mounted on a block of aluminum designed to mimic the mass of a Cygnus payload.

The sensors will measure data as the Antares booster rockets through the speed of sound and arcs southeast from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The data recorders will monitor the conditions encountered as the rocket jettisons its liquid-fueled first stage and ignites an upper stage motor several minutes after liftoff.

The 8,377-pound mass simulator, which contains no propulsion or power systems, will be released from the Antares rocket's solid-fueled second stage about 10 minutes after liftoff, verifying the launcher's payload separation system functions as envisioned.

Officials view the test flight as a learning exercise.

"That first word is test, so if things don't go exactly as planned, we will learn what we need to learn," Culbertson said. "And we will press on and continue to improve as we go forward."

Since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, NASA relies on two commercial partners - Orbital Sciences and SpaceX - to loft experiments, food, spare parts and other gear to the international space lab.

The Antares rocket on the launch pad at Wallops Island, Va. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

The space agency selected two companies for cargo services to have a backup in case one system runs into trouble. NASA's space station partners, including Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency, each operate their own cargo vehicles.

"We don't have the shuttle anymore," said Culbertson, a former astronaut who commanded space shuttle and space station missions. "The shuttle, with all its cargo capability and lift capability, was able to keep the space station very well-supplied with things of any size, from the largest battery requirement to the smallest instrument. But without the shuttle, we need other means of doing that, and it's going to be a multi-faceted solution."

Financing the development with internal funds, Orbital Sciences started working on the Antares rocket in April 2007, according to Kurt Eberly, deputy Antares project director.

"It's very gratifying to me to see this capability. When we started this program six years ago, none of this existed. There was no building, there was no pad, and there was certainly no rocket," said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA, in remarks at the Antares launch pad.

The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, an economic development agency run by the government of Virginia, paid for construction of the launch pad, which is run by Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a partnership between Virginia and Maryland.

NASA joined the project in February 2008, pledging $170 million to Orbital Sciences if the firm completed development milestones leading to a successful demonstration of the Antares and Cygnus vehicles on a flight to the space station. Orbital's own private investment in the program totaled "a couple of hundred million dollars," according to Culbertson, who declined to disclose the exact value.

Using additional money appropriated by Congress, NASA later expanded its Space Act Agreement with Orbital, promising another $118 million if the Dulles, Va.-based company added a test launch of the Antares rocket before the flight to the space station.

Under the agreement, NASA pays Orbital upon completion of milestones. A successful Antares test launch will trigger a $4 million payment from NASA to Orbital.

But Orbital Sciences has an eye on the long-term prize, a $1.9 billion contract the company secured in late 2008 for eight operational resupply missions to the space station.

"It's not a few million [dollars] we have riding on this," Culbertson said. "It's $1.9 billion and the company's reputation."

Artist's concept of a Cygnus spacecraft approaching the International Space Station. Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.

If successful, the test flight Wednesday will give Orbital Sciences the confidence to proceed into the next phase of its cargo resupply program - a demonstration mission to the space station this summer.

Equipped with a voluminous cargo container, the Cygnus spacecraft due to launch on the summer mission is already assembled at Wallops, and engineers are fueling the vehicle with propellant this week, Culbertson said.

Orbital's first operational launch of Antares and Cygnus could come before the end of 2013, assuming the test missions go well without significant delays.

"I am very much looking forward to the day when the Antares/Cygnus system is making regular cargo resupply runs to the International Space Station, so that we can make sure that international lab is well-supplied," McAlister said.

Each flight will deliver more than two tons of supplies. At the end of the mission, the Cygnus spacecraft will burn up in Earth's atmosphere, disposing of the space station's garbage in a method similar to the one employed by Russian, Japanese and European spaceships.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which has accomplished two of its 12 contracted resupply flights, is the only vehicle capable of returning experiment samples and other gear to Earth.

NASA's contracts with Orbital and SpaceX cover flights until about 2016, so the space agency must negotiate new deals for resupply services through the rest of the space station's expected lifetime, which extends until at least 2020.

McAlister said NASA has not defined how it will procure cargo services for the second half of the decade - whether the government will extend the existing contracts or go through a complete round of competition open to new entrants.  

© 2013 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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New Private Rocket Launching on Maiden Flight from Virginia Today

Tariq Malik and Mike Wall

17 April 2013 Time: 06:44 AM ET

 

 

 

The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Tuesday, April 16, 2013 in Virginia. Liftoff is set for April 17. CREDIT: NASA/Bill Ingalls View full size image

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — A new private rocket called Antares is poised to blast into space for the first time today, potentially marking a giant leap forward for the emerging commercial spaceflight industry.

The Antares rocket is slated to lift off at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) Wednesday (April 17) from Virginia's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), on a test flight designed to pave the way for unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station.

If all goes well today, two different private American spacecraft could soon be delivering supplies to the orbiting lab for NASA — a scenario the agency envisioned five years ago, when it signed billion-dollar cargo deals with SpaceX and Antares' builder, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. [How to see the Antares rocket launch]

This map by Orbital Sciences Corp. shows the launch visibility possibilities for Orbital's Antares rocket on April 17, 2013. The rocket will launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.
CREDIT: Orbital Sciences Corp.

View full size image

"A lot of people say that the American space program is in decline," Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development, said Tuesday (April 16) from the agency's Wallops Flight Facility, where MARS is located. "Well, you only have to go a couple of miles down the road to see it on the rise, literally."

 

Today's test flight will mark the biggest rocket ever to fly from Virginia's Eastern Shore and Wallops Island, which is NASA's launching ground for small sounding rockets. The launch could be visible from a wide swath of the U.S. East Coast, reaching as far north as Portland, Maine, and as far south as Charleston, S.C. You can watch the Antares launch webcast live here at SPACE.com, courtesy of NASA.

"This is a big event for the Eastern Shore for Wallops, and for everybody in the surrounding area and, I think, for everybody in the country," Orbital executive vice president Frank Culbertson, general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group, told reporters Tuesday.

Filling the space shuttle's shoes

NASA is counting on Orbital and SpaceX to fill the cargo-carrying void left by the retirement of the agency's space shuttle fleet, which was retired in 2011 after 30 years of spaceflight.

Orbital signed a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to fly eight unmanned supply missions using Antares and a spacecraft called Cygnus under the space agency's Commercial Resupply Services program. California-based SpaceX got $1.6 billion for 12 flights with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.

SpaceX has already flown two of these contracted missions, delivering cargo to the orbiting lab in October 2012 and then again this past March. Dragon also visited the station on a demonstration flight in May of last year.

Orbital plans to be up and running soon as well. NASA picked Orbital as one of its cargo carriers in 2008 under a separate Commercial Orbital Transportation Service program, awarding the company $288 million to help develop the Cygnus spacecraft. At the time, Orbital was developing the Antares rocket in-house and added several hundred million of its own funds for the project, company officials said. [Orbital's Antares Rocket Explained (Infographic)]

Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft approaching the ISS.
CREDIT: Orbital Sciences Corporation

Orbital Sciences is already prepping a Cygnus for a demonstration mission to the space station, which could blast off by late June if today's Antares launch goes smoothly. The first official Cygnus cargo mission could then follow by year's end.

"It's being sent off to the fueling facility to get fueled, because the cargo's already packed," said Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski, explaining that Cygnus will carry about a half-load of cargo up to the station on its maiden voyage.

The progress made by both SpaceX and Orbital shows that NASA's decision to rely on commercial cargo providers was a good one, Beneski added.

"I think it validates the approach that NASA has taken," he told SPACE.com. "For the government, I think this is a very good business deal on their part."

NASA also wants private American spaceships to start carrying its astronauts to and from the orbiting lab by 2017, ending its current reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for this taxi service.

SpaceX is working on a manned version of Dragon in the hopes of scoring a NASA crew contract. Other major contenders are Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp., which are developing a capsule called the CST-100 and a space plane called Dream Chaser, respectively.

"I think what this shows you is that there's no one way to do spaceflight development. There's no one business case," McAlister said. "There are multiple approaches and multiple strategies and philosphies that can work. We have this competitive environment and they are free to innovate."

Antares' maiden launch

From start to finish, today's test flight will last about 18 minutes. It should take the Antares rocket, however, about 10 minutes to deploy its payload — a dummy version of the Cygnus spacecraft — after launch.

While Orbital is targeting a 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) liftoff, the company has a three-hour window in which to launch the Antares rocket. Currently, there is about a 45 percent chance of good weather at launch time. The potential for thick low clouds — NASA has a visibility requirement for the flight — and rainstorms are the only concerns. Orbital would try again on Thursday (April 18) if weather delays today's flight.

A mass simulator is designed to mimic the weight of a real cargo ship. Image released April 11, 2013.
CREDIT: Orbital Sciences Corporation / NASA

View full size image

The Antares rocket is a two-stage booster that stands about 131 feet (40 meters) tall and is powered by two Aerojet AJ26 liquid-fueled engines that are modernized versions of engines originally built to launch Russia's N-1 moon rocket in the 1960s.The second stage is a solid-fueled rocket motor built by Alliant Techsystems (ATK), the same company that built the rocket boosters for NASA's space shuttles.

The rocket, Culbertson said, will appear to take its time launching off the pad before streaking spaceward on a southeastern trajectory that carries it out over the Atlantic Ocean. Since the launch will be visible from Washington, D.C., Orbital officials have provided viewing guides to members of Congress to help lawmakers see the launch, and will host an event at the company's office near the Capitol.

Orbital Sciences picked Antares as the new moniker for its Taurus 2 rocket, a new medium-class booster initially slated to launch the firm's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft on space station cargo flights for NASA. Image released March 2013.
CREDIT: Orbital Sciences Corporation / NASA

View full size image

"'My confidence level is very high," Culbertson said. "I think we're going to see a nice show and I feel great."

The target orbit of the Antares rocket is a path that alternates between 155 miles (250 kilometers) and 188 miles (303 kilometers) above the Earth. The dummy Cygnus vehicle should stay in orbit for about two weeks before burning up in Earth's atmosphere, Culbertson said.

Before burning up, however, the Cygnus mass simulator will deploy several tiny satellites for NASA and a commercial client. The small nanosatellites include two versions of coffee cup-size Phonesats for NASA's Ames Research Center and the Dove-1 nanosatellite for a commercial customer.

Culbertson said today's launch will likely be the loudest rocket ever to blast off from Wallops Island, which is flanked by a national wildlife refuge.

"We'll try not to disturb the crabs and oysters," he said with a laugh.

Editor's note: If you snap a great photo of Orbital's Antares rocket launch that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Visit SPACE.com for complete coverage of the Antares rocket launch on Wednesday.

This story has been corrected to reflect the proper title of Orbital's Frank Culbertson, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Orbital's Advanced Programs Group.

Mike Wall contributed to this report from San Francisco. Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+.

 

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