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U.S. Commercial Cargo Spaceship Heads to the International Space Station

Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket blasted off Nov. 12 from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to send the company’s Cygnus spacecraft to orbit on the start o...

Cygnus CRS OA-8 (S.S. Gene Cernan)

Circle Image

Overview

Destination: Low Earth Orbit
Mission: Resupply

Low Earth Orbit Launch Area 0 A Wallops Island, Virginia, USA Probability: 95%

This is the ninth planned flight of the Orbital ATK's unmanned resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its eighth flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.

Antares 230

Family:
Configuration: 230

Antares known during early development as Taurus II, is an expendable launch system developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation (now part of Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems after Northrop Grumman acquired Orbital ATK) and the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau to launch the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's COTS and CRS programs. Able to launch payloads heavier than 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) into low-Earth orbit, Antares is the largest rocket operated by Orbital ATK. Antares launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and made its inaugural flight on April 21, 2013.

See Details
Specifications
  • Stages
    3
  • Length
    42.5 m
  • Diameter
    3.9 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    286 T
  • Thrust
    3844 kN
Family
  • Name
    Antares 230
  • Family
  • Variant
    230
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    Antares 230
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
  • Low Earth Orbit
    7800 kg
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

Cygnus CRS OA-8E


Active Cargo Unmanned Payload Capacity: 3750 kg
Destination: International Space Station
Serial Number: None

Cygnus CRS OA-8E, also known as Orbital ATK CRS-8E, was the ninth flight of the Orbital ATK unmanned resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its eighth flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Orbital and NASA jointly developed a new space transportation system to provide commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station (ISS). Under the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program, then Orbital Sciences designed and built Antares, a medium-class launch vehicle; Cygnus, an advanced maneuvering spacecraft, and a Pressurized Cargo Module which is provided by Orbital's industrial partner Thales Alenia Space.

Cygnus Enhanced Details

Northrop Grumman Space Systems

Northrop Grumman Space Systems

(NGSS)

CEO: Kathy Warden Founded: 2015 Successes: 14 Failures: 0 Pending: 5

Agency Type:

Northrup Grumman Space Systems designs, builds and delivers space, defence and aviation-related systems to customers around the world. They aquired Orbital ATK in 2018 along with its launchers and ongoing missions.

INFO WIKI

Wallops Island, Virginia, USA

Launch Area 0 A


Falcon 9
Success
2 hours, 50 minutes ago
Starlink Group 10-9
Launch Complex 39A - Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

A batch of satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Long March 4B
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
Gaofen-11-05
Launch Complex 9 - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Gaofen is a series of civilian Earth observation satellites developed and launched for the China High-definition Earth Observation System (CHEOS), a …


Falcon 9
Failure
2 weeks, 1 day ago
Starlink Group 9-3
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

A batch of 20 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Hyperbola-1
Failure
2 weeks, 2 days ago
Yunyao-1 15-17
Launch Area 95A - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

3 weather satellites performing atmospheric measurements using GNSS Radio Occultation for a Tianjin based company. Constellation is planned to have a…


Ariane 62
Success
2 weeks, 3 days ago
Maiden Flight
Ariane Launch Area 4 - Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana

Maiden Flight of the Ariane 62 launch vehicle, carrying ten cubesats, two deployers, five experiments, and two reentry capsules.


Falcon 9
Success
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Türksat 6A
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Türksat 6A is Turkey's first domestically manufactured geostationary communications satellite. It is to reside in 42° East orbital slot, providing se…


Long March 6A
Success
3 weeks, 1 day ago
Tianhui 5 Group 02
Launch Complex 9A - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

A pair of satellites officially described as for cartographic surveying purposes, details TBD.


Firefly Alpha
Success
3 weeks, 2 days ago
FLTA005 (Noise of Summer)
Space Launch Complex 2W - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Fifth flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying eight cubesats for NASA's ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite) mission.


Falcon 9
Success
3 weeks, 2 days ago
Starlink Group 8-9
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 20 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


H3-22
Success
3 weeks, 5 days ago
Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4)
Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-2 - Tanegashima Space Center, Japan

The Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) is a Japanese satellite designed to observe the Earth's surface using a phased array type L-band syn…