14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation announce the successful launch of their first resupply mission to the International Space Station, using a spacecraft combo developed by the company. Takeoff occurred at 1:07 pm EST (1807 GMT) yesterday, January 9, 2014.
OSC built both the Cygnus unmanned cargo capsule and the Antares medium-lift delivery system that boosted it into low-Earth orbit. This mission represented the first resupply flight for the Cygnus spacecraft, whose maiden test flight took place last September.
Launch occurred from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, on Wallops Island, Virginia, after numerous delays. These deviations from the original time line were caused by glitches on the space station, by the cold snap currently affecting the United States, and by a solar flare that was released a few days ago.
Orbital Sciences is working under a $1.9 billion (€1.47 billion) NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, which calls for it to conduct a total of 8 resupply missions to the ISS by 2016.
The company is now the second private entity to have successfully launched a resupply mission to the space lab, following Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. SpaceX develops the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule under a similar CRS contract.
“Today's launch demonstrates how our strategic investments in the American commercial spaceflight industry are helping create new jobs here at home and keep the United States the world leader in space exploration,” commented NASA Administrator Charles Bolden soon after the successful launch.
“American astronauts have been living and working continuously in space for the past 13 years on board the International Space Station, and we’re once again sending them supplies launched from U.S. Soil,” the top NASA official added.
“In addition to the supplies, the passion and hard work of many researchers and students are being carried by Cygnus today. I congratulate Orbital and the NASA teams that made this resupply mission possible,” he said in a statement.
The current Cygnus mission is called Orbital-1 (Orb-1) and its role is to deliver 1,260 kilograms (2,780) pounds of experiments, spare parts, fuel, food, air, oxygen and personal items for the six members of the Expedition 38 crew aboard the space station.
A large number of scientific payloads from numerous universities and research centers have also been crammed aboard the spacecraft. NASA has included some of its experiments on the Cygnus, too.
Cygnus is scheduled to arrive at the ISS at around 6:02 am EST (1102 GMT) on Sunday, January 12. NASA astronaut and Expedition 38 flight engineer Michale Hopkins will use the Canadarm-2 robotic arm on the space lab to capture the capsule, and then dock it to the ISS.