WASHINGTON, PRNewswire-
NASA has opened media accreditation for the next launch of a commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch of Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled for Thursday, March 10, during a 30-minute window that opens at
approximately 3 a.m. EST.
approximately 3 a.m. EST.
Cygnus will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. The spacecraft will carry crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory to support the Expedition 47 and 48 crews.
Media prelaunch and launch activities will take place at CCAFS and NASA's nearby Kennedy Space Center. For media only, the deadline to apply for access to CCAFS is 5 p.m. Feb. 18 for U.S. citizens and Feb. 5 for non-citizens. The deadline to apply for media access to Kennedy is 5 p.m. on March 1 for U.S. citizens and Feb. 22 for non-citizens.
This launch is the fifth contracted mission by Orbital ATK under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract and will be followed later this year by an Orbital ATK resupply mission launching from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.
Science payloads heading to the space station on this launch include:
- the second generation of a portable on-board printer to demonstrate 3-D printing;
- an instrument for first space-based observations of the chemical composition of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere; and
- an experiment to ignite and study a large-scale fire inside an empty Cygnus resupply vehicle after it leaves the space station and before it re-enters Earth's atmosphere to improve understanding of fire growth in micro-gravity and safeguard future space missions.
The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station has been occupied continuously since November 2000. In that time, more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft have visited the orbiting laboratory. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.