After Antares test launch, Orbital aims for space station

Buoyed by a flawless test launch of the Antares rocket, the heavy-lifting part of its commercial cargo resupply system for the International Space Station, Orbital Sciences Corp. has its eye on a summer demonstration flight of the company's Cygnus resupply freighter.

"I'm not going to hold my breath any less on the next one than I did on this one," said Frank Culbertson, executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group. "Every launch is a challenge, and you want to make sure that it's all done right."

Sunday's flight was the culmination of a six-year, $300 million effort to design, build and test the Antares booster, which can loft medium-class satellites into orbit and is contracted by NASA to launch nine more times on cargo deliveries to the space station.

It also broke in a new $140 million launch pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Launch pad 0A is owned by Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and was mostly funded by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.

"Early results of the engineering analysis indicate that the vehicle's all-important first stage system, including its twin liquid rocket engines, performed exactly as expected, as did other vehicle systems as well as the launch complex's propellant and pressurization equipment," said David Thompson, Orbital's chairman, president and CEO.

Culbertson said the success of Antares permits the company to move on to the next phase of its $288 million agreement with NASA, which is how the U.S. government finances development of the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft in partnership with Orbital's own capital.

"All of that demonstrated that when we do this again, we know how to make this happen and we'll get that payload - the Cygnus - into orbit and on its way to the International Space Station, so that it can continue its mission and we can provide the cargo, the experiments, the clothing and food that they need to sustain and extend their mission."

Already fueled and loaded with cargo, the first Cygnus spacecraft will be bolted to the second Antares rocket ahead of launch from Wallops Island, Va.

Sunday's Antares test flight only sent a dummy payload into orbit.

"It's ready to be transferred into the horizontal integration facility, and as soon as the rocket is ready to receive it, we will integrate the two together and it will be ready to roll out to the pad some time this summer - probably late June or early July," Culbertson said. "So we will be on track for delivery, assuming the space station schedule can accommodate us, and we don't run into any unforeseen problems."

Follow this link:
After Antares test launch, Orbital aims for space station