Fwd: Cygnus docks at space station

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 12, 2014 4:11:54 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Cygnus docks at space station

 

Cargo spaceship "Cygnus" docked to the ISS

12.01.2014 17:30 ::

 

January 12, 2014 was held docking cargo vehicle "Cygnus", put into orbit January 9, 2014, the International Space Station.

 

At 15 hours 08 minutes Moscow time was produced capture cargo ship ISS manipulator, and 17 hours 12 minutes Moscow time "Cygnus" was attached to the module "Harmony» (Node2) AS ISS.

 

Cargo ship "Cygnus" delivered to the ISS around 1300 pounds of various goods, including technical equipment, clothing and food for the crew of the ISS.

 

Roscosmos press service and PCO

 

 

NASA

Jan. 12, 2014

 

RELEASE 14-013

New NASA Science Arrives at Space Station Aboard Orbital Sciences Cygnus Spacecraft

 

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station Sunday used a robotic arm to capture and attach the Cygnus supply spacecraft, which carried dozens of new science experiments from across the country and the world to the orbiting laboratory. The arrival capped the first successful contracted cargo delivery by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., for NASA.

 

Astronaut Mike Hopkins of NASA grappled the spacecraft at 6:08 a.m. EST and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency attached Cygnus to the space station's Harmony Node at 8:05 a.m. The Expedition 38 crew members aboard the station will begin unloading the 2,780 pounds (1,261 kilograms) of supplies aboard Cygnus following hatch opening planned for Monday.

 

The cargo is comprised of vital science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware. This includes 23 student-designed science experiments. One newly arrived investigation will study the decreased effectiveness of antibiotics during spaceflight. Another will examine how different fuel samples burn in microgravity, which could inform future design for spacecraft materials.

 

Orbital's Cygnus was launched on the company's Antares rocket Thursday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Cygnus will remain attached to Harmony until a planned unberthing in February sends the spacecraft toward a destructive re-entry in Earth's atmosphere.

 

Orbital Sciences is one of two companies that built and tested new cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. COTS was completed late last year with an Orbital Sciences demonstration mission to the space station. Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the other company that partnered with NASA under COTS, also is providing commercial resupply services for the agency. U.S. commercial cargo delivery flights to the station help ensure a robust national capability to deliver critical science research to orbit, significantly increasing NASA's ability to conduct new science investigations aboard the only laboratory in microgravity.

 

In addition to cargo flights, NASA's commercial space partners are making progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil within the next three years.

 

The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station has been continuously occupied since November 2000. In that time, it has been visited by more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.

 

For more information about newly arrived science investigations aboard the Cygnus, visit:

 

http://go.nasa.gov/1dOKONp

 

For more information about Orbital's cargo mission and the International Space Station, visit:

 

http://www.nasa.gov/station

 

-end-

 

Trent J. Perrotto

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1100

trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

 

Josh Byerly

Johnson Space Center, Houston

281-483-5111

josh.byerly@nasa.gov

 

 

Orbital Sciences Corporation 

Press Release

 

Contact: Barron Beneski, (703) 406-5000, beneski.barron@orbital.com

Orbital's Cygnus Spacecraft Successfully Berths With International Space Station

 

-- Rendezvous and Berthing Operations of Company's First Operational Cargo Logistics Mission Proceeded Smoothly --

 

-- Cargo Unloading to Begin Tomorrow with 37-Day Stay at Station Planned --

 

(Dulles, VA 12 January 2014) – Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced that its Cygnus™ cargo logistics spacecraft successfully completed its rendezvous and approach maneuvers with the International Space Station (ISS) and was grappled and berthed with the station by the Expedition 38 astronaut crew earlier this morning.  After Cygnus was launched into orbit by Orbital's Antares™ rocket on Thursday, January 9 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, it completed a series of thruster firings and other maneuvers bringing the spacecraft in close proximity to the ISS.  Final approach to the station began at about 3:00 a.m. (EST) this morning, culminating with the station's robotic arm grappling the spacecraft at 6:08 a.m. when it was about 30 feet (10 meters) from the ISS.  Cygnus was then guided to its berthing port on the nadir side of the ISS' Harmony module where its installation was completed at 8:05 a.m. 

 

"Our first mission under the CRS contract with NASA was flawlessly executed by our Antares and Cygnus operations team, from the picture-perfect launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility to the rendezvous, capture and berthing at the space station this morning," said Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital's President and Chief Executive Officer.  "From the men and women involved in the design, integration and test, to those who launched the Antares and operated the Cygnus, our whole team has performed at a very high level for our NASA customer and I am very proud of their extraordinary efforts."

 

Cygnus will remain berthed at the ISS until February 18. Cygnus is delivering approximately 2,780 lbs. (1,260 kg.) of cargo and science payloads to the Expedition 38 astronauts.  Either later today or tomorrow, the crew plans to open the Cygnus hatch and make initial ingress into its cargo module.  Cygnus will remain attached to the station for 37 days before departing with approximately 2,800 lbs. (1,300 kg.) of disposable cargo for a safe, destructive reentry over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Under a $1.9 billion CRS contract with NASA, Orbital will use Antares and Cygnus to deliver up to 44,000 pounds (20,000 kilograms) of cargo to the ISS over eight missions, including the mission currently underway, through late 2016.  For these missions, NASA will manifest a variety of essential items based on ISS program needs, including food, clothing, crew supplies, spare parts and equipment, and scientific experiments.

 

About Cygnus

 

Orbital developed the Cygnus cargo spacecraft as part of its COTS joint research and development initiative with NASA.  Cygnus consists of a common Service Module (SM) and a Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM). The SM incorporates avionics, power, propulsion and communications systems already successfully flown aboard dozens of Orbital's LEOStar™ and GEOStar™ satellites.  The PCM, designed and built by Thales Alenia Space under a subcontract from Orbital, is based on the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) previously used with the Space Shuttle.  With a full load of cargo and fuel, the standard-configuration Cygnus weighs about 5,200 kg at launch and generates 3.5 kw of electrical power while in orbit.  It is capable of extended-duration missions of a year or longer in space.

 

About Orbital

 

Orbital develops and manufactures small- and medium-class rockets and space systems for commercial, military and civil government customers. The company's primary products are satellites and launch vehicles, including low-Earth orbit, geosynchronous-Earth orbit and planetary spacecraft for communications, remote sensing, scientific and defense missions; human-rated space systems for Earth-orbit, lunar and other missions; ground- and air-launched rockets that deliver satellites into orbit; and missile defense systems that are used as interceptor and target vehicles. Orbital also provides satellite subsystems and space-related technical services to government agencies and laboratories. More information about Orbital can be found at http://www.orbital.com. Follow the company on Twitter @OrbitalSciences.

 

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US Spacecraft Cygnus Docks With ISS

 

MOSCOW, January 12 (RIA Novosti) – The Cygnus cargo spacecraft developed by private US company Orbital Sciences has arrived at the International Space Station on its first resupply mission, NASA has reported.

 

Expedition 38 astronauts captured the unmanned cargo spacecraft carrying nearly 2,800 pounds of supplies three days after its launch from Virginia on an Antares rocket.

 

Flight Engineers Mike Hopkins and Koichi Wakata used Canadarm2, the station's 57-foot robotic arm, to reach out and grapple Cygnus. The docking was broadcast live by NASA.

 

The mission is the first out of eight planned Cygnus trips to the station under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. Under the contract, almost 20 tons of cargo will be delivered up to 2016.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft, on its first test flight, launched on Sept. 18 on Orbital's Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia carrying 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of supplies to the ISS.

 

© 2014  RIA Novosti

 

 

 

FLORIDA TODAY

Jan. 12, 2014 7:11 AM

 

Cygnus cargo craft arrives at ISS with West Shore experiment

Written by

James Dean

 

A fresh batch of supplies and science experiments, including one designed by local high school students, has reached the International Space Station.

 

Expedition 38 astronauts captured Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned Cygnus cargo freighter at 6:08 a.m. EST, three days after its launch from Virginia on an Antares rocket.

 

Steering a 58-foot robotic arm, astronaut Mike Hopkins snared the barrel-shaped spacecraft carrying nearly 2,800 pounds of supplies as the two vehicles flew 260 miles over the Indian Ocean, travelling 17,500 mph.

 

Hopkins radioed congratulations to the ground, noting that the Cygnus was the second he'd seen during his three-and-a-half months living on the station, starting with a maiden demonstration mission last fall.

 

"I think that's very impressive," he said.

 

The capture this morning completed the first of eight planned Cygnus trips to the station under a $1.8 billion NASA resupply contract.

 

Astronaut Koichi Wakata of Japan was set to take over the robotic arm's controls to attach the Cygnus to a Harmony node port within a couple of hours.

 

The crew might have time to open the Cygnus hatch today, to remove the time-sensitive "Ants in Space" experiment, or it could be done Monday.

 

Another experiment on board was designed by students from West Shore Jr./Sr. High in Melbourne, one of 17 projects selected by the Student Spaceflight Experiment Project.

 

The experiment honors their former teacher, Jason Whitworth, who was stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

 

The Cygnus is expected to stay berthed at the station for about 40 days.

 

Unlike SpaceX's Dragon, which has completed two resupply missions under a $1.6 billion contract and is targeting launch of a third next month from Cape Canaveral, the Cygnus will not return to Earth.

 

Instead it will be packed with trash, freeing up valuable space on the station, and burn up in the atmosphere when its mission is complete.

 

Copyright © 2014 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved.

 

 

Cygnus cargo ship berthed at space station

01/12/2014 09:51 AM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD

CBS News

 

A commercial cargo ship loaded with nearly 1.5 tons of supplies and equipment was captured by the International Space Station's robot arm early Sunday and attached to a docking port, wrapping up a complex but problem-free two-and-a-half-day rendezvous.

 

The Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo craft, launched Thursday from Wallops Island, Va., was captured by arm operator Mike Hopkins at 6:08 a.m. EST (GMT-5) as the two spacecraft sailed 260 miles above the Indian Ocean. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata then maneuvered the spacecraft to the Earth-facing port of the forward Harmony module where motorized bolts locked it into place at 8:05 a.m.

 

Named after the late astronaut and test pilot C. Gordon Fullerton, the Cygnus cargo ship is packed with 2,780 pounds of spare parts, crew supplies and experiment hardware, including 23 experiments involving more than 8,600 elementary, junior high and high school students in the United States and Canada.

 

An "ants in space" payload will give students and opportunity to study behavioral differences between ants in normal gravity and those in the weightless environment of space. Other experiments will study the biology of drug-resistant bacteria and how liquids simulating rocket fuel slosh around in weightlessness.

 

Along with on-board science, the Cygnus is delivering more than two dozen small "cubesat" satellites, including a fleet of 23 "Dove" satellites built by Planet Labs of San Francisco that will monitor the global environment.

 

A crowd-funded cubesat provided by Southern Stars, also of San Francisco, will allow the public to send "tweets from space" that can be picked up by amateur radio operators. Users also will be able to request Earth images from the satellite.

 

The Cygnus cargo ship shortly after capture by the space station's robot arm. (Credit: NASA TV)

 

Also on board: belated holiday gifts for the station crew. The Cygnus capsule originally was scheduled for launch before Christmas, but the flight was pushed into January when NASA ran into problems with the space station's cooling system.

 

This is the first operational station resupply mission carried out by Orbital Sciences under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA calling for at least eight flights and delivery of 40,000 pounds of cargo and supplies.

 

The Cygnus captured Sunday will remain attached to the space station until mid February. At that point SpaceX will step up with launch of a Dragon cargo ship around Feb. 22. It will be the third operational resupply flight by SpaceX, which holds a $1.6 billion contract to deliver more than 44,000 pounds of supplies over a dozen missions.

 

© 2011 William Harwood/CBS News

 

 

Orbital Sciences cargo ship arrives at space station

Reuters

By Irene Klotz

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Orbital Sciences Corp, one of two companies hired by U.S. space agency NASA to make supply runs to the International Space Station, delivered its first cargo ship on Sunday, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

 

Space station flight engineer Mike Hopkins used the outpost's 60-foot-long (18 meter) robotic arm to pluck a Cygnus freighter capsule from orbit at 6:08 a.m. EST as the two ships sailed 264 miles over the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar.

 

"A big sigh of relief for Orbital," said astronaut and NASA TV commentator Catherine "Cady" Coleman from Mission Control in Houston.

 

About two hours later, Hopkins latched the capsule, which is about the size of a small bus, to a docking port on the space station's Harmony module.

 

The capsule is loaded with 3,221 pounds (1,461 kg) of food, equipment, science experiments and supplies for the station, including computers and replacement parts for NASA's spacesuits.

 

Several commercial payloads also are aboard the Cygnus freighter, including a "CubeSat" launcher owned by Houston-based NanoRacks. CubeSats are 4-inch-sided, standardized, relatively inexpensive spacecraft. They produce their own power, transmit signals and are used for a variety of scientific purposes. Individual CubeSats can be configured to fly together.

 

The launcher will be operated from Japan's Kibo module, which includes a small airlock, robotic arm and external platform. The Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency already operates a similar CubeSat launcher.

 

The Cygnus capsule is scheduled to remain docked to the outpost for about 45 days, and will be unpacked, then refilled with trash and items no longer needed aboard the station.

 

Astronauts will then use the station's robot arm to remove the capsule and release it into orbit so it can drive itself into the atmosphere for incineration.

 

Orbital Sciences and privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, have NASA contracts worth a combined $3.5 billion for a total of 20 cargo flights to the space station, a $100 billion research complex owned by the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.

 

Orbital Sciences made a successful test flight to the station in September. On Thursday, the Virginia-based company launched the first of eight paid missions for NASA. SpaceX meanwhile is preparing for its third cargo run on February 22.

 

NASA hired the companies following the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011. The U.S. space agency also is managing a heated three-way competition between SpaceX, Boeing Co and privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp, to develop spaceships to fly astronauts.

 

NASA hopes to break the Russian government's monopoly on station crew taxi flights by 2017.

 

Rides on Russian Soyuz capsules currently cost the United States more than $60 million per person. The price will rise to more than $70 million in 2016.

 

NASA meanwhile is developing a heavy-lift rocket and capsule for future human missions into deep space, such as the moon and Mars beyond the station's orbit.

 

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

 

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014.

 

 

Private Cargo Ship Delivers Gifts, Ants to Space Station Crew

by Tariq Malik, Managing Editor   |   January 12, 2014 08:30am ET

 

A privately launched cargo ship packed with late Christmas presents and space-traveling ants linked up with the International Space Station on Sunday (Jan. 12) in a milestone delivery mission for the astronauts onboard.

 

Space station astronauts used a robotic arm to capture the unmanned Cygnus spacecraft early Sunday morning and attach it an open docking port as both spacecraft sailed 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth. The special delivery comes courtesy of the Dulles, Va.-company Orbital Sciences Corporation, which launched the Cygnus spacecraft on Thursday (Jan. 9) to make its first commercial resupply mission to the station for NASA.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft is carrying 2,780 lbs. (1,260 kilograms) of gear for the space station crew, including fresh fruit and Christmas gifts. It is also delivering eight ant farms to the station for weightlessness research, 23 student experiments and small cubesat satellites among the science gear. [See more photos of the Cygnus mission to space station]

 

"The cargo is comprised of vital science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware," NASA officials said in a statement. "One newly arrived investigation will study the decreased effectiveness of antibiotics during spaceflight. Another will examine how different fuel samples burn in microgravity, which could inform future design for spacecraft materials."

 

The mission was originally slated for a mid-December launch, but Orbital Sciences officials and NASA delayed the flight to January when a cooling system malfunction on the station forced astronauts to perform emergency spacewalk repairs.

 

Bitter cold temperatures and a surprise solar flare added extra delays last week, with the Cygnus spacecraft finally launching on Thursday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport's Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. It lifted off atop an Orbital-built Antares rocket.

 

Despite the delay, Sunday's arrival appeared to go flawlessly, with astronauts Mike Hopkins of NASA and Koichi Wakata of Japan — both flight engineers with the station's six-man Expedition 38 crew —easily latching onto the Cygnus spacecraft with the station's robotic arm.

 

"Our first mission under the [Commercial Resupply Services] contract with NASA was flawlessly executed by our Antares and Cygnus operations team, from the picture-perfect launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility to the rendezvous, capture and berthing at the space station this morning," Orbital President and CEO David Thompson said in a statement.  

 

Orbital's $1.9 billion cargo delivery deal with NASA calls for the company to launch at least eight resupply missions to the space station by 2016 to ferry a total of 40,000 lbs. (18,143 kg) of supplies to the orbital lab. The company's Cygnus spacecraft are bus-size disposable spacecraft designed to deliver supplies to the station, and then haul away trash and unneeded items for disposable. A Cygnus spacecraft visited the station last September in a debut test flight, but that demonstration mission did not carry a full cargo load.

 

Orbital officials named the Orb-1 Cygnus the Spaceship C. Gordon Fullerton in honor of the late NASA astronaut Gordon Fullerton of the same name, who died last year.

 

"Very pleased the S.S. C. Gordon Fullerton performed so well. Just as its namesake would have expected," Orbital officials wrote in a Twitter statement Sunday. "'Gordo' would be proud!"

 

NASA currently has contracts with Orbital and the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX for commercial resupply missions to the station using unmanned spacecraft. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion deal with NASA for 12 cargo missions using its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon space capsules. Two of those missions have flown so far, with the third slated to launch on Feb. 22.

 

"This resupply operation is the life of the space station," NASA astronaut Cady Coleman said during docking commentary on Sunday. "It is one thing to get the crew up there, but it is really important to get the supplies up there."

 

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

 

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