A day later due to weather conditions, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Northrop Grumman Cygnus shipment loaded with more than 4 tons of supplies, spare parts, new food and clinical equipment lifted off Sunday from Cape Canaveral, kicking off a two-day double encounter with the International Space Station.
Despite an initially grim 90% forecast for Sunday, weather conditions along Florida’s Space Coast remained within limits and the workhorse Falcon 9, employing a first level on its 10th flight, charged life at 11:02 a. m. EDT and moved away temporarily. from the Cape Canaveral Area Station.
Thick clouds and electrical activity derailed a release attempt Saturday, but had no effect on the company’s operations at the Vandenberg Space Station in California, where another Falcon 9 boosted another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit Sunday morning. . That paved the way for a second attempt to push the Cygnus off the east coast seven and a half hours later.
The Florida launch went off without a hitch and after boosting the nine-stage Falcon and Cygnus delivery out of the lower atmosphere, the first level separated, changed course and returned to a tail-first landing in the Cape Canaveral area. . The Force Station will mark SpaceX’s 53rd landing in Florida and its 335th, a booster recovery success overall.
Meanwhile, the second stage continued to climb into orbit thanks to the strength of its single Merlin engine. The Cygnus launched to fly on its own 14 1/2 minutes after liftoff.
The launch of Cygnus, the 76th submitted through SpaceX so far this year, is time to bring in a Northrop Grumman shipping ship. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Northrop Grumman opted to upgrade its Antares 200-series rockets, featuring a first level of Ukrainian-made rockets powered by Russian engines, with a new all-American launcher.
To meet its contractual obligations to NASA, Northrop Grumman purchased three Falcon flights from SpaceX while the company continues to develop a new rocket.
If all goes well, Cygnus, named for Challenger commander Francis “Dick” Scobee, will reach the space station early Tuesday, stopping about thirty feet from the outpost and waiting to be captured by the lab’s robotic arm. 3:10 a. m.
From there, flight controllers at Houston’s Johnson Space Center will operate the arm remotely, moving Cygnus to dock at an Earth-facing port on Unity’s core module.
On board: 2,251 pounds of team supplies, 2,790 pounds of equipment, 3,439 pounds of station equipment, 95 pounds of spacewalk equipment and 29 pounds of computer components, plus new fruits, vegetables and coffee for the team of the station.
“We have over 1,800 pounds of science flying, and the science supports the spaces of human health, fundamental science, generation demonstration, and manufacturing progression in space, here on Earth,” said Array Meghan Everett, deputy scientific leader of the ISS.
The Cygnus will also deliver clothing and other private items to Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams, who took off on June 5. They had originally planned to spend just over a week aboard the space station. the flight of the Boeing ship. First piloted control flight.
But it turned out that his project dragged on several times due to testing and research following helium leaks in the Starliner’s propulsion formula and problems with the maneuvering thrusters.
Sunday marked Wilmore and Williams’ 60th day in space, with no decision yet made on whether they would be allowed to return to Earth aboard the Starliner or whether they would have to hitchhike aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
In the meantime, “we have some things going on (on Cygnus) because we like to keep our roles open,” Bill Spetch, the ISS’s head of operations integration, told reporters on Friday. public food products for them, things like that. “
NASA and Boeing executives plan to meet this week to talk about Starliner’s options, when the next long-endurance station equipment will take off aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, and how Wilmore and Williams might think about those calculations if we return to the Starliner is ultimately out of the question.