This is the 16th planned flight of the Orbital ATK's uncrewed resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its 15th flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. This Cygnus spacecraft is named after American astronaut Ellison Onizuka who died in the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Low Earth OrbitThe KL-Beta A and B, satellites are test satellites for a global multimedia satellite system for the German company KLEO Connect and the Chinese company Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology. The satellites were built by CAS Microspace and feature a Ka-band communications payload. The prototype system also includes another satellite “GMS-T” built by OHB System of Germany.
Polar OrbitStar One D2 is a 6.2 tons satellite built by Space Systems Loral for operator Star One, subsidiary of Brazilian Embratel. Its architecture is based on a SSL-1300 platform and equipped with C, X, Ku and Ka-band transceivers. It will provide communications services to Latin America for at least 15 years. Eutelsat Quantum is an experimental communications satellite carrying a payload able to be reconfigured by software. It is developed by ESA, Eutelsat and Airbus Defence and Space.
Geostationary Transfer Orbit VA254A U.S. Air Force experimental spacecraft. It will demonstrate the use of a deployable sensor, where the sensor’s mass is a substantial fraction of the total mass of the spacecraft and provide a platform to test future space protection capabilities.
Low Earth OrbitTH 1 (Tianhui-1 = "Sky drawing") is a Chinese stereo-topographic mapping satellite operated by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The satellites are built by the Hangtian Dongfanghong Weixing Corporation and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and the Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CAST). The satellites operate on a 500 km circular sun synchronous orbit. Electrical power is provided by two deployable solar panels that is stored on onboard batteries. They are equipped with a three-dimensional survey camera and a CCD camera with a ground resolution of 5 meters, spectral region of 0.51 µm to 0.69 µm and with a camera angle of 25 degrees. Also on board is a multi-spectral camera with a ground resolution of 10 meters operating in four spectral bands of 0.43 µm to 0.52 µm, 0.52 µm to 0.61 µm, 0.61 µm to 0.69 µm, and 0.76 µm to 0.90 µm. The swath width of the cameras is 60 kilometers wide.
Sun-Synchronous OrbitNauka (which means "Science" in Russian), also known as Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM), is a new module of the russian segment of the ISS. It will dock at Zvezda's nadir port, replacing the Pirs module occupying it since September 2001. The Nauka module is designed to be used for experiments, docking and cargo as well as serve as a crew work and rest area. It is equipped with full guidance and navigation control including engines and an attitude control system that can be used as a backup by the ISS. The Nauka module also brings the European Robotic Arm, for which a spare elbow joint was already launched in 2010, to the orbital laboratory.
Low Earth Orbit