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Orbital ATK to resume U.S. cargo mission to ISS months after rocket explosions

Xinhua, December 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

A private cargo spaceship was set to be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday afternoon, resuming what the U.S. space agency NASA hoped was a regular rhythm of commercial shipments to the orbital laboratory after two consecutive launch explosions in the past one year.

Orbital ATK's enhanced Cygnus spacecraft was scheduled to blast off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 5:55 p.m. EST (2255 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This will be the Virginia-based company's fourth operational mission to the ISS for NASA under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.

"We are very proud to be back in this position of getting ready to launch supplies to the International Space Station again," Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK's Space Systems Group, told a prelaunch news conference.

When asked if he felt well about Thursday's launch, Culbertson said: "We feel extremely confident, or we wouldn't be sitting on top of that rocket right now."

Orbital ATK is one of the two commercial companies hired by NASA after the space shuttles were retired to fly cargo to the ISS. Its third CRS mission using the company's own Antares rocket was destroyed in a launch explosion in October last year. The other company, SpaceX, was recovering from a similar launch explosion in June this year as well.

Kirk Shireman, NASA's ISS program manager, who also took part in the briefing, called the failures "growing pains" in what he said was "a transition period."

"Commercial space is going to happen," Shireman said. "It is inevitable, it is occurring right now, it is our future."

Shireman pointed out that NASA wanted to "have a regular cadence of resupply flights" over the next year as both Cygnus and SpaceX's Dragon resumed cargo missions to the ISS.

The NASA official also called 2015 "a difficult year" for the ISS as a result of the two U.S. cargo delivery failures as well as the loss of a Russian cargo spacecraft in April, revealing that the orbiting lab has basically toilet supplies through February next year and that food supplies would also run out on April 12.

"So we're looking forward to having those supplies being replenished" by Thursday's cargo mission, he added.

According to NASA, the enhanced Cygnus will carry about 3,500 kilograms of cargo to the ISS, one third of which are crew supplies. The earlier version of the spaceship could carry only about 2,000 kilograms of cargo.

If all goes as planned, Cygnus will arrive at the ISS on Sunday for an expected two-month visit.

Orbital ATK has three CRS missions scheduled in 2016 to support ISS cargo needs. A second Cygnus launch using the Atlas V rocket will take place next spring from Florida, followed by the return of operations to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in mid-2016 where the company will continue CRS missions atop the upgraded Antares rocket. Endit