Orbital Sciences to launch next resupply mission to ISS on July 11 Orbital Sciences Corp has set July 11 as the next launch of their Antares rocket on the company’s second NASA-contracted resupply flight to the International Space Station (ISS). According to NASA, Orbitals Cygnus cargo spacecraft will lift off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceports Launch Pad 0A at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Friday, July 11 at 1:40 p.m. EDT. The Cygnus spacecraft will be filled with more than 3,000 pounds of cargo and supplies for the space station, including science experiments to expand the research capability of the Expedition 40 crew members aboard the orbiting laboratory, crew provisions, spare parts and experiment hardware. The spacecraft will take about four days to reach the space station if launched as per schedule, where it will stay for 40 days while astronauts unload cargo and then reload the craft with items for disposal. Orbital-2 will also carry nanosatellites that are designed to take images of Earth, developed by Planet Labs of San Francisco and a satellite-related investigation called TechEdSat-4 built by NASAs Ames Research Center in California, which aims to develop technology that will eventually enable small samples to be returned to Earth from the space station. In addition, a host of student experiments are being flown in association with the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program, an initiative of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and NanoRacks. Orbitals second cargo supply mission to the space station was postponed twice after a rocket engine scheduled to fly an ISS flight next year failed during testing at Stennis Space Center in May. NASA TV will provide live coverage of the installation of Cygnus onto Harmony starting at 9:30 a.m. Photo credit: Orbital Sciences
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 11:01:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015