Orbital Sciences Antares ORB-D Launch Thread

[Mr Shifty]

OSC's demonstration flight of their Cygnus cargo vessel to the International Space Station is set to launch on Wednesday (9/18) at 10:50am local (EDT), depending on weather. This will be the second flight of the Antares rocket which uses modified NK-33 engines from the failed Soviet N-1 program for its first stage.

The ISS on orbit status report for the last few days has shown that preparations for communicating with and grappling the Cygnus Demo as it arrives are satisfactory and present no obstacle to launch. If this mission is successful, Orbital will be certified to do commercial re-supply missions to the ISS (like SpaceX.)

Info here:

http://www.orbital.com/Antares-Cygnus/

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/09/orbitals-antares-loft-cygnus-debut-mission-iss/

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/09/antares-rolled-wallops-pad-ahead-orb-d-mission/

http://www.spaceflight101.com/antares---cygnus-orb-d-mission-updates.html

Countdown timeline here:

http://www.spaceflight101.com/antares-countdown-timeline.html

Launch video:

Edited September 18, 2013 by Mr Shifty

[Motokid600]

http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=868

According to that article the launch is tomorrow at 11:16.

[Mr Shifty]

http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=868

According to that article the launch is tomorrow at 11:16.

It was delayed for 24 hours from the original launch.

[Motokid600]

Hm. Bummer. The weather here in the north east is going to be clear and sunny tomorrow. Not so much on Wednesday. Damn I had a day off of work riding in this lol. Company was gonna take a trip to see it in cape may. O well... Wednesday it is.

[Kerbal01]

I won't be able to watch it, it launches at 10:00 CST or 2 hours before my schools lunch time.

[Motokid600]

Weathers looking perfect. Antares will launch at 10:50EDT. Or is it EST? Idk.. stupid daylight savings.

[Mr Shifty]

Launch at 10:50 EDT. (The only locations that use EST in the summer are the Cayman Islands and Southhampton Island in the far north of Hudson Bay.)

Here is a great long-form article from NSF with lots of details about the Cygnus, what it's carrying, Antares, the launch pad, and launch and ISS rendezvous profiles.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/09/orbitals-antares-loft-cygnus-debut-mission-iss/

Here's a great timelapse video of the Antares roll-out:

Edited September 18, 2013 by Mr Shifty

[Motokid600]

That was a cool video Shifty. So is this thing launching at 10:50 or 9:50? Every article tells me something different. I cannot wait for this thing to go up. Hopefully no problems. My camera is ready. Im so grateful to be able to see these as plain as day from my backyard.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Motokid600

[Tiberion]

In about an hour now. The OP needs updated.

I glanced in here to check the time before I went to bed, and now woke up an hour early. Oops.

[Kryten]

Less than ten minutes to launch.

[legoheli]

Succesful launch has been acheived - now let's see if it can rendezvous too!

[Spaps]

'Twas a marvellous launch, mates!

[Mr Shifty]

Go Antares Go! Beautiful!

[Tiberion]

Very nice. If everything goes well with this mission they're turning around and tossing another one up in December (since SpaceX had to delay their next mission to finish Falcon9 1.1 testing)

[Mr Shifty]

Looks like September 24-26th will be very busy for the ISS. The Soyuz TMA-10M launch of Expedition 37 to the ISS is on September 25th. Soyuz does a 6 hour rendezvous; Cygnus is supposed to take 6 days and complete 10 demonstration objectives before being allowed to approach the ISS.