First Antares rocket since 2014 disaster launches Monday
The nighttime launch of Orbital ATK's Cygnus OA-5 craft from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on October 17, 2016. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Meteorologist/Science Writer
Monday, October 17, 2016, 11:00 PM - Orbital ATK's first Antares rocket launch in nearly two years lifted off Monday night, bound for the International Space Station. Read on for the details and to watch the launch again.
Quick Facts
• The latest Antares launch from the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States took place at 7:45 p.m. EDT Monday
• This is the first launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport since the explosion of an Orbital ATK launch there on October 28, 2014
• The spacecraft is carrying around 2,400 kg of cargo for the ISS and will deploy weather-monitoring satellites en-route to the station
• For those with clear skies, this launch was visible from far up and down the coastline and far inland, possibly even as far away as southern and eastern parts of Canada
Private spaceflight company, Orbital ATK, boosted their Cygnus CRS OA-5 cargo ship into orbit atop an Antares launch vehicle, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, on Wallops Island, Virginia, to deliver a load of cargo to the International Space Station.
Watch Below: NASA TV coverage of the Cygnus CRS OA-5 launch starts at 5:00 p.m. EDT with replays of the launch briefing and Cygnus processing, with live coverage beginning at 7:00 p.m. EDT.
The launch, originally scheduled for Friday, Oct 14, at 8:51 p.m. EDT, was first pushed back to Sunday, Oct 16 at 8:03 p.m. EDT, to avoid any potential impacts from Hurricane Nicole, which was churning its way northward off the Atlantic coast.
It was further delayed prior to the Sunday launch window, due to a technical problem on the launch pad.
"Today’s launch of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket is postponed 24 hours due to a ground support equipment (GSE) cable that did not perform as expected during the pre-launch check out," NASA wrote in a blog post on Sunday. "We have spares on hand and rework procedures are in process. The Antares and Cygnus teams are not currently working any technical issues with the rocket or the spacecraft."
Now, having been successfully launched into space, this is the first Antares to lift off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in nearly two years, since Orbital ATK's Cygnus CRS Orb-3 resupply mission exploded just seconds after liftoff, on October 28, 2014 (scroll down for video footage of the disaster).
The uncrewed Cygnus CRS OA-5 spacecraft, named the S.S. Alan G. Poindexter after the former NASA astronaut, is carrying roughly 2,400 kg of supplies for the space station crew, as well as science experiments to forward the mission of the ISS. En route, the craft will circle Earth for over two days while it catches up to the ISS, during which time it will deploy four Lemur-2 cubesats for Spire Global, which will join the company's existing constellation of satellites, to monitor both shipping traffic and weather from low-Earth orbit. When Cygnus arrives at the ISS crew captures it with the Canadarm2 and berths it with the station. It will remain attached to the ISS until sometime in late November, while the crew fills it with garbage, and it will eventually be released to burn up in the atmosphere, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.
Viewed from far and wide
Given clear weather, the brilliant rocket burn of the Antares was visible from far and wide as the spacecraft climbed towards low-Earth orbit. It was potentially seen as far away as southern Ontario, southern Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Monday night's launch visibility. First sighting times are expressed as a number of seconds after launch. Credit: NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility
The colored bands on the above map represent the timing of when the rocket should have been high enough to be seen for locations around the launch facility. This timing was an allowance for the rocket to clear local terrain and obstacles for those closer locations, and even the curvature of the Earth for locations farther away.
Cool science headed to orbit
This Orbital resupply mission is carrying some new science experiments to the Space Station, including:
• Cool Flames - to study small, low-temperature, invisible fires in space
• Lighting Effects - a new LED lighting system that will vary in brightness and spectrum, to better sync up the crew's circadian rhythms to the normal wake and sleep schedule on board the station
• Everywear - a new tablet app to keep track of the crew's health and nutritional intake, through the use of sensor pads, fingertip recorders and a system of barcode scanning for meal packets, and
• Fast Neutron Spectrometer - a device that records the passage of high-energy neutrons through the station, which are part of the everyday radiation exposure astronauts are exposed to when they travel above earth's shielding atmosphere.
The result of these experiments, as with all the science conducted on the station, will go towards benefitting not only human space exploration, but also life here on Earth.
Sources: Orbital ATK | NASA Spaceflight | NASA | Spire Global
