Impressive Cygnus Launch Reassures Orbital ATK and NASA

More than a year since the failed launch attempt of its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft,Orbital ATK and NASA could relax yesterday with the flawless ULA Atlas V launch of an enlarged version of Cygnus,which unfurled its new solar panels and was pointed in the right direction to reach the ISS 250 miles above Earth.On 28 October 2014,the Antares rocket had exploded in a spectacular fireball,incinerating the company's spacecraft and the NASA cargo it was to carry to the ISS.Since then,Orbital has ascertained that it was probably the Antares' AJ-26 refurbished Russian engine that was responsible for the explosion in the form of a faulty turbopump;it is working to select and test a replacement for the AJ-26,while at the same time moving to United Launch Alliance,a Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture,for the rockets it needs to meet its eight-mission NASA contract obligations.Yesterday's successful Atlas V launch of the Cygnus SS Deke Slayton II,named for the NASA Mercury program astronaut and director of flight operations who died in 1993,was its fourth ISS resupply mission,the midpoint of the contract.It also marked the return of ISS resupply launches to US soil and Orbital's first launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,Florida.Besides launching from Cape Canaveral,Orbital is now utilising Kennedy Space Center's spacecraft processing facilities and services for the ISS missions.
Cygnus,which contains the Thales Alenia Space Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM),is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Wednesday,when US astronauts Scott Kelly,currently on a one-year mission with Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko,and Kjell Lindgren grab the spacecraft with the Canadarm2 robotic arm and attach it to the earth-facing ISS Unity Module.It will be docked for two months while the astronauts unload the Cygnus of such cargo as the SAFER jetpack,which is a self-contained maneouvering unit mainly for emergency use during spacewalks,as well as such items as science experiments,gases for breathing and a microsatellite launcher with the first ever microsatellite.*
Orbital ATK is a leading aerospace and defence technologies company with over 12,000 employees in 20 US states and several international locations.Its products range from small caliber ammunition all the way up to commercial aerostructures,commercial and government satellites,rockets,missile propulsion systems and advanced space systems for human exploration.*
Orbital ATK Inc (OA),Lockheed Martin (LMT),Boeing (BA)