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Northop Grumman's robotic Cygnus cargo ship launched toward the ISS this morning (Nov. 7) from Virginia, packed with more than 4.1 tons (3.7 metric tons) of food and other supplies for the astronauts aboard the orbiting lab. The launch went smoothly, but Cygnus encountered some trouble after separating from its Antares rocket ride: The freighter has managed to unfurl just one of its two solar arrays. Mission team members are working to troubleshoot the glitch, but Cygnus may still be able to power its way to the space station for a scheduled Wednesday (Nov. 9) meetup even if a fix...

A Northrop Grumman rocket carrying more than 4 tons of supplies for the International Space Station will have to wait at least one more day to launch after a fire alarm at its mission control center thwarted a liftoff early Sunday (Nov. 6). The Antares rocket was about 10 minutes away from a planned liftoff at 5:50 a.m. EST (1050 GMT) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, when Northrop Grumman called off the flight. A fire alarm at the company's control center in nearby Dulles, Virginia, forced a building evacuation, preventing launch controllers from going through with...

This week Firefly Aerospace signed a deal with Northrop Grumman to replace the first stage of the Antares rocket with the first stage of Firefly Beta, this will eliminate the dependence on Russian engines and bring the manufacturing of the major structural parts into the US.Firefly Will Replace Russian Engines On Antares Rocket With Beta Booster | August 11, 2022 | Scott Manley

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket is scheduled to lift off at 5:56 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Aug. 10, as part of the company’s 16th mission to deliver supplies, equipment and NASA science investigations to the International Space Station, NASA announced. As long as skies are clear, the launch may be visible to people across the Mid-Atlantic region and possibly other parts of the eastern United States... Live coverage of the mission countdown is scheduled to begin at about 1 p.m. Tuesday on the Wallops IBM video site. Launch coverage on NASA TV is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

If you’re not in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, you can also watch live coverage of the Cygnus launch on NASA TV and the agency’s website. TV coverage begins Sunday at 22:00 UTC (5 p.m. EST). This will be Northrop Grumman’s 13th commercial resupply mission to ISS using its Cygnus cargo spacecraft. The spacecraft will be loaded with approximately 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) of research, crew supplies, and hardware. The Cygnus spacecraft will arrive at the space station on Tuesday, February 11. ISS astronauts will capture Cygnus with the station’s robotic arm and install the spacecraft. Cygnus is scheduled to stay...

Acquiring space launch company Orbital ATK in an all-cash $7.8 billion merger, Northrop took possession of Orbital's Minotaur and Antares medium-lift rocket families. It acquired Orbital's ongoing project to build a new "OmegA" class heavy lift rocket as well, with which to compete against the likes of United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for large commercial and military satellite launches. Northrop Grumman also inherited Orbital's ongoing NASA contract to resupply crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) with needed consumables under the agency's CRS-1 and CRS-2 "Commercial Resupply Services" contracts -- missions valued at as much as $14 billion across the...

An Orbital ATK Antares rocket will launch a commercial Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station from Virginia's Eastern Shore before dawn on Monday, and the launch could be visible to potentially millions of spectators along the U.S. East Coast. The Antares rocket is scheduled to launch at 4:39 a.m. EDT (0839 GMT) on Monday (May 21) and should be highly visible across the East Coast of the United States, weather permitting. The mission, called OA-9, will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to deliver more than 3 tons of supplies to...

It is one of the most famous, bright stars in our galaxy, known for its strong red tint. And now scientists have used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLTI) to capture the most detailed image of Antares yet. The stunning image reveals a mysterious process­­­­­­­­­­ occurring in Antares' extended atmosphere - which the researchers still cannot explain.

Orbital ATK announced late Tuesday that the company’s Antares medium-class commercial rocket outfitted with new first stage RD-181 engines has successfully completed a test firing of the powerplants. The 30-second long static test firing took place at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday evening, May 31, at Virginia Space’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad 0A. The now revamped launch vehicle – dubbed Antares 230 – has been ‘re-engined’ and upgraded with a pair of modern and more powerful first stage engines – the Russian-built RD-181 fueled by LOX/kerosene. The engine test was conducted using only the first stage of Antares at the MARS...

Explanation: Planets, stars, nebulas and a galaxy -- this impressive image has them all. Closest to home are the two planets Mars (right) and Saturn (center), visible as the two bright orange spots in the upper half of the featured image. On the central right are the colorful Rho Ophiuchus star clouds featuring the bright orange star Antares lined up below Mars. These interstellar clouds contain both red emission nebulas and blue reflection nebulas. At the top right of the image is the Blue Horsehead reflection nebula. On the lower left are many dark absorption nebulas that extend from the...

Assembly and testing of a significantly upgraded version of Orbital ATK's commercially developed Antares rocket has kicked into high gear and is on target for rebirth - as the clock ticks down towards its "Return to Flight" by approximately mid-2016 from a launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia, company managers told Universe Today during a recent up close media visit to see the actual flight hardware. Mission integration operations are in full swing right now as technicians were actively processing Antares hardware during my visit to Orbital ATK’s Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) at NASA's Wallops Flight...

The spacecraft will haul approximately 3,600 kilograms (4 tons) of material in a pressurized cargo module to the International Space Station in December 2015. This is the fourth Commercial Resupply Services cargo run by Orbital Sciences (OA-4). The Cygnus spacecraft is developed and produced by Orbital Sciences. Historically, it has always launched on an Orbital Antares rocket, but that rocket is still grounded for safety upgrades following the unscheduled rapid disassembly last fall. Instead, the Cygnus will be launched by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. It will also be launching from a new pad — Cape Canaveral instead...

Explanation: What’s happening outside this cave? Nothing unexpected – it’s just the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy passing by. As the Earth turns, the band of our Galaxy appears to rotate and shift along the horizon. The featured image was taken by a photographer who professes a passion for locating sea caves, and who found this spectacular grotto in Leo Carrillo State Park near Malibu, California, USA. After some planning, he timed this single shot image through the 10-meter high cave entrance to show the Milky Way far in the distance. In the foreground, several rocks about one...

For the NASA press corps, specifically the photojournalists responsible for capturing suicidal up-close images at liftoff, camera setups for the recent launch attempt of an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket on the Orb-3 mission was as usual, but the outcome was anything but. Everyone knows that a rocket can explode, and although the odds are incredibly small we understand the risks when we set up our launch pad cameras to document the impressive launches of America’s missions to space. As the old saying goes; spaceflight is not routine, and the still and video imagery presented in this article tonight highlight...

SAN MARINO (CBSLA.com) — When Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Antares rocket launch failed on Tuesday, two local students’ science experiment went down in flames as well. Six seconds into Commercial Resupply Flight 3 (ORB-3), the Antares 130 rocket, commissioned by NASA from Orbital Sciences Corp. and carrying an unmanned spacecraft with 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station, suffered a failure, and exploded as it crashed back into Launch Pad 0A at Wallops Island, Virginia. One of the experiments lost in the failure was developed by David Hengky and Nathaniel Rolfe, two seniors at San Marino High...

The first sign of failure during Tuesday’s doomed launch of an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket from Virginia came from the booster’s first stage about 15 seconds after liftoff, according to engineers studying what triggered a fiery mishap that destroyed a commercial cargo craft heading to the International Space Station. The rocket’s 13-foot-diameter first stage, containing tanks with more than 50,000 gallons of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants, is made in Ukraine and powered by Soviet-era engines built in the 1970s for Russia’s moon program. “Evidence suggests the failure initiated in the first stage after which the vehicle lost its...

The Cygnus space cargo craft atop the Antares rocket exploded just after launch. The Rocket lifted off, gained about 100 feet, there was an explosion, then the rocket fell back down and exploded on the pad at Wallops Island.

A space station deliver rocket scheduled launch Tuesday evening exploded and crashed as it took off from Wallops Island.

A Nasa rocket due to be visible across the East Coast on its way to the International Space Station has blown up on the launchpad. The rocket exploded six seconds after lift-off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island in Virginia. Engineers said there were no problems reported before the launch, and say they have 'no early indications' of what went wrong. 'A mishap has occurred. we have lost the vehicle,' controllers said seconds after blast off.

An Orbital Sciences rocket operating under a NASA contract exploded shortly after launch on Tuesday evening, much to everyone's surprise — except, perhaps, Elon Musk. Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, trashed Orbital Sciences for using outdated Russian engines during a 2012 Wired interview: "One of our competitors, Orbital Sciences, has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, and their rocket honestly sounds like the punch line to a joke. It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the ’60s. I don’t mean their design is from the ’60s—I mean they start with engines that were literally made in...