Cygnus NG-13 (CRS-13) - Antares-230+ - MARS LP-0A - 09.02.2020, 22:39 UTC

[tnt22]

 Spaceflight Now‏ @SpaceflightNow 37 сек. назад

Weather conditions on Virginia's Eastern Shore continue to be favorable for liftoff today of a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket and Cygnus supply ship heading for the International Space Station. Liftoff is set for 3:21:01pm EST (2021:01 GMT).

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 21:49 Stephen Clark

The launch weather officer at Wallops just briefed the Antares team on conditions for launch. Weather continues to look favorable for today's liftoff time set for 3:21:01 p.m. EST (2021:01 GMT).

The weather officer continues to predict a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather at launch time today, and he says confidence is building that conditions will be favorable.

Upper level winds today are much improved over yesterday, with maximum winds this afternoon out of the west at 76 knots at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

At launch time, forecasters expect scattered clouds at 3,000 feet, broken clouds at 30,000 feet, southeast winds of 6 to 10 knots, and a temperature of 36 degrees Fahrenheit.

[tnt22]

 Spaceflight Now‏ @SpaceflightNow 26 сек. назад

Northrop Grumman launch conductor Adam Lewis has polled the Antares team, and all stations are "go" to begin filling the liquid-fueled first stage with RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen.  Liftoff remains set for 3:21pm EST (2021 GMT) from Virginia.

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:07 Stephen Clark

Propellant has started pumping into the Antares rocket's first stage. About 21,000 gallons of RP-1, a high-refined rocket-grade kerosene, and about 41,000 gallons of liquid oxygen will be loaded into the first stage over the next half-hour.

The kerosene is stored at roughly room temperature and the liquid oxygen is chilled to around minus 298 degrees Fahrenheit. The oxygen will slowly boil off during the countdown, and liquid oxygen will continue flowing into the rocket until shortly before liftoff.

One change introduced by the Antares 230 rocket, which made its inaugural flight in 2016, is the elimination of "sub-cooled" liquid oxygen chilled and densified at minus 383 degrees Fahrenheit for the Antares rocket's old AJ26 engines. The RD-181s consume the oxidizer at its boiling point.

The first stage tanks are designed by Yuzhnoye and built by Yuzhmash in Ukraine based on heritage from the Zenit rocket. The liquid oxygen tank is positioned in the upper part of the 12.8-foot-diameter stage and the RP-1 tank is in the lower part of the stage.

The first stage's two RD-181 engines will consume the liquid propellant during a 3-minute, 14-second burn.

The Antares second stage, a Castor 30XL motor built by Northrop Grumman, is propelled by solid fuel already loaded into the rocket.

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:08 Stephen Clark

Gripper arms on the transporter-erector-launcher have opened, and the structure has moved to the so-called "pre-pullback" position in preparation for its retract at liftoff.

[tnt22]

 Spaceflight Now‏ @SpaceflightNow 6 сек. назад

Super-cold liquid oxygen is being loaded into the Antares rocket at this time.

All systems are "go" for launch at 3:21:01pm EST (2021:01 GMT) to begin a resupply mission to the International Space Station with nearly 4 tons of cargo & experiments.

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:30 Stephen Clark

The Antares' Gryo Compass guidance system is being aligned and configured for today's launch.

[tnt22]

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:41 Stephen Clark

Forty minutes until liftoff. The Cygnus spacecraft on this flight is carrying 3,377 kilograms, or 7,445 pounds, of supplies to the International Space Station. This is the 10th flight of the enlarged Cygnus pressurized cargo module from Thales Alenia Space, providing 25 percent more interior volume for supplies. The spacecraft measures about 20 feet tall, and the pressurized cargo module has a volume of about 27 cubic meters, or 950 cubic feet.

Here are some statistics on today's launch:

[/li]
• 12th Antares rocket launch
  
• 2nd launch of the Antares 230+ configuration
  
• 18th orbital launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport
  
• 14th launch of a Cygnus spacecraft
  
• 1st orbital launch from Wallops in 2020
  
• 4th orbital launch from the United States in 2020
  
• 12th global orbital launch attempt in 2020
  

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:42 Stephen Clark

Engineers have selected and loaded the preferred trajectory file into the Antares flight computer at this time. This trajectory file takes into account today's upper level wind conditions.

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:45 Stephen Clark

Three small satellites are hitching a ride to the International Space Station aboard the Cygnus supply ship.

Two of the miniature spacecraft are sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Another was developed at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.

The Red-Eye 2 microsatellite is the second in a series of Red-Eye satellites developed by DARPA. The Red-Eye satellites aim "to develop and demonstrate technologies that increase the utility of low-cost microsatellites," according to NASA.

The first Red-Eye satellite launched to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship last year, then was released from the NanoRacks Kaber deployer in June 2019.

"Red-Eye will demonstrate lightweight, low-power, gimballed inter-satellite communications links appropriate for the class of satellites approximately 100 kg (220 pounds) in size," NASA wrote in a summary of the experiment. "Red-Eye will also demonstrate new attitude control components, onboard processors, and software-defined radios."

Two CubeSat-class satellites are also aboard the Cygnus supply ship for release from the space station's smaller satellite deployer.

The Deformable Mirror, or DeMi, spacecraft is about the size of a small suitcase. Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the deformable mirror instrument will demonstrate technologies that could be used on future space telescopes making high-contrast observations of exoplanets around bright stars. Such precision observations, which will use coronagraphs to blot out the light of the star, require the use of deformable mirrors inside the telescope that can be adjusted using internal actuators, according to MIT.

The deformable mirrors "can correct image plane aberrations and speckles caused by imperfections, thermal distortions, and diffraction in the telescope and optics that would otherwise corrupt the wavefront and allow leaking starlight to contaminate coronagraphic images," MIT scientists wrote in a summary of the demonstration.

DARPA is funding the DeMi experiment, and Aurora Flight Sciences is managing the mission.

NASA's TechEdSat 10 nanosatellite is the next in a line of experimental CubeSats developed at the Ames Research Center in California. According to NASA, the TechEdSat 10 spacecraft will function as a high temperature, accurate deorbit reentry nanosatellite.

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[tnt22]

02/15/2020 22:46 Stephen Clark

The Wallops range is "green" for toxic and debris rules. These rules ensure debris and toxic vapors from the launcher do not spread over populated areas in the event of an accident.

[tnt22]

[Astro Cat]

28 минут до запуска. 

[tnt22]

[tnt22]

 Spaceflight Now‏ @SpaceflightNow 58 сек. назад

Launch conductor Adam Lewis just concluded his final prelaunch readiness poll. All stations gave a "go" for launch, with no problems reported that could prevent liftoff of the Antares rocket from Virginia at 3:21:01 p.m. EST (2021:01 GMT).

[tnt22]

[tnt22]

02/15/2020 23:13 Stephen Clark

T-minus 8 minutes and counting. The countdown remains on track, targeting liftoff from pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 3:21:01 p.m. EST (2021:01 GMT).

The range is confirmed "go" for launch.