At KSC, Cygnus packed for first flight aboard Atlas V
Asked what advice he’d give students as he orbited Earth during the first cooperative U.S.-Soviet spaceflight in 1975, NASA astronaut Deke Slayton replied to President Gerald Ford: “Decide what it is you want to do, and don’t give up until you’ve done it.”
Embracing that spirit, Orbital ATK next week will roll a Cygnus cargo craft named in Slayton’s honor to its Cape Canaveral launch pad.
It will be the first flight by a Cygnus carrying International Space Station cargo since one was destroyed by an Antares rocket’s explosion seconds after an October 2014 liftoff from Wallops Island in Virginia.
That spacecraft also was named for Slayton, an Original Seven astronaut, so the new one has been dubbed the “S.S. Deke Slayton II.”
“We’re going to give it another try, and this time we’re confident we’re going to do it well,” Dan Tani, a former astronaut who is Orbital ATK’s senior director of mission and cargo operations, told reporters Friday at Kennedy Space Center.
Atlas V stacked for first International Space Station launch
The second try will be handled by United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, which will be flying for the 60th time but first with a mission related to the space station.
The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is scheduled for around 6 p.m. Dec. 3
If successful, the Cygnus will be the first U.S. vehicle to reach the orbiting laboratory complex since April, when SpaceX’s Dragon capsule last visited.
The Dragon’s next flight in June was doomed by a Falcon 9 rocket, leaving both of NASA’s commercial cargo providers temporarily grounded while they sorted out their respective accidents.
Russian and Japanese vehicles have successfully ferried cargo to the station in the interim, easing the strain on supplies.
The Cygnus, a silver canister that resembles a 17-foot tall keg, returns in what is known as an “enhanced” configuration. It can carry about 30 percent more cargo — more than 7,000 pounds on this flight — because of its slightly larger size and the more powerful ride provided by the Atlas V.
A spacesuit and some water filters are among the key hardware on board, along with science experiments, food, clothes and probably Christmas presents for some of the station’s six-person crew, including a pair participating in a yearlong mission: American Scott Kelly and Russian Mikhail Kornienko.
Astronauts �impressed� with Cygnus delivery
Having lived on the station for four months in 2007 and 2008, Tani knows the morale boost an arriving cargo craft can provide.
“It’s like coming home from the store and unpacking the trunk of all the stuff that you bought,” he said. “A lot of stuff you didn’t know you needed, but (there's also) a lot of stuff like notes from home, things that are really meaningful.”
Fully packed for flight, the Cygnus on Monday is expected to be enclosed inside a protective payload fairing at KSC before being transported to Launch Complex 41 next Friday to be hoisted atop the Atlas V that will stand nearly 200 feet tall.
The launch is Orbital ATK’s first of two aboard the Atlas V before its own Antares rocket, equipped with different main engines, returns to flight next summer from Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
“We feel very confident that Atlas will give us a good ride and put us in the right place so that we can get to the space station,” said Tani.
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