- The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Orbital ATK's Cygnus craft, should liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 5:33 p.m. ET Friday, zooming on its way to deliver more than 7,300 lbs. of much-needed experiments, food and other supplies to the astronauts aboard the Space Station.
- The Orbital ATK launch originally was scheduled for Thursday evening, but rain and heavy cloud cover forced postponement. Orbital contracted with ULA to use the Atlas for two missions in order to resume flight operations as quickly as possible after the mishap. But if the spacecraft launches later in its 30-minute launch window, its rendezvous with the station will slip to Tuesday (Dec. 8),
- Today's weather outlook does not appear to be much better, with only a 30 percent chance of favorable conditions at launch time.
- An unmanned Atlas rocket was poised to lift off at sunset with about 3,550 kilograms of supplies for the International Space Station.
- The rocket and Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship began rolling just after 10 a.m. Wednesday atop a transporter about one-third of a mile from a processing tower to the pad.
- The Deke Slayton II is the first ISS-bound spacecraft that had been previously worked on inside the space station. The original S.S. Deke Slayton was the cargo craft lost in last year's explosion.
- This is an important launch for Orbital after its failed launch in October of past year, when its Antares rocket exploded 15 seconds from launch, turning the cargo into a fireball and damaging Wallops Island's launchpad.
- More attention than usual is focused on the Orbital CRS-4 mission because of three recent failures involving resupply efforts.
- Also aboard the newest Cygnus capsule: clothes, toiletries, spacewalking gear, air-supply tanks and science experiments. SpaceX will now launch its Falcon 9 rocket, equipped with Crew Dragon spacecraft, at the launch site in Florida.
Keywords: Launch Window, cargo craft,
cargo, Orbital CRS-4 mission
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