The Orbital ATK Cygnus Blasts off to Resupply the Station
The Cygnus spacecraft from Orbital ATK blasts off atop the Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus cargo spacecraft lifted off at 4:44 a.m. EDT and is on its way to the International Space Station. At the time of launch, the space station was traveling at an altitude of about 250 miles, over the central south Atlantic.
An hour and half after launch, commands will be given to deploy the spacecraft’s UltraFlex solar arrays. Launch coverage will resume on NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/live at about 5:45 a.m. for solar array deployment, which is expected to last about 30 minutes.
A post-launch news conference will follow and is scheduled to begin on NASA TV at approximately 7:00 a.m.
Antares Rocket Set to Launch NASA Science to the International Space Station
The Orbital ATK Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, is seen at launch Pad-0A, Saturday, May 19, 2018, at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Liftoff is currently targeted for 4:39 a.m. Eastern on Monday, May 21.
DSLWP amateur radio satellites to launch to Lunar orbit
Hu Chaoran BG2CRY tests 435/2250 MHz dish feed for DSLWP ground station – Image credit Wei Mingchuan BG2BHC
DSLWP is a lunar formation flying mission led by Harbin Institute of Technology for low frequency radio astronomy, amateur radio and education. It consists of a pair of 47 kg microsatellites, to be launched into a lunar transfer orbit UTC this Sunday evening, and finally enter a 300 x 9000km lunar elliptical orbit. Onboard each satellite, there are two VHF/UHF SDR transceivers to provide beacon, telemetry, telecommand, digital image downlink and a GMSK-JT4 repeater. Onboard transmitting power is about 2 W.
Wei Mingchuan BG2BHC reports the satellites are 50x50x40 cm with a mass of about 45 kg and are 3-axis stabilized. Two linear polarization antennas are mounted along and normal to the flight direction.
Harbin Institute of Technology Amateur Radio Club expects radio amateurs to join in this mission. We will prepare different QSL cards for different flight phase for amateurs successfully made QSO or received telemetry. Awards will also be given to the first 10 amateurs in each continent who successfully decoded the signals from the satellites, received the most number of packets, or received an image. Your participation will also help the team to get a better knowledge of the status of the satellites.
An open source decoding software based on GNU Radio to work with RTL-SDR and USRP is provided. Not difficult to change the grc files to support other SDR receivers. A small proxy software will send the decoded data to a server for real-time display.
UPDATE: NASA, Orbital ATK Now Targeting May 21 for Next Resupply Mission to Space Station
Orbital ATK, in conjunction with NASA, has moved the launch of its ninth contracted mission to the International Space Station to no earlier than 4:39 a.m. EDT Monday, May 21, to support further prelaunch inspections and more favorable weather conditions.
The Antares rocket from Orbital ATK makes its way to the launch pad at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Antares will launch the Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft that will resupply the Expedition 55 crew on the International Space Station rolled out to its launch pad Thursday night. Cygnus is now targeted to blast off atop the Antares rocket Monday at 4:39 a.m. EDT from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA TV will begin its live broadcast of the launch Monday at 4 a.m.
Orbital ATK and NASA managers moved Cygnus’ launch to no earlier than Monday to support further pre-launch inspections and more favorable weather conditions. Monday shows an 80% probability of acceptable weather for launch.
Cygnus is packed with 7,400 pounds of new science experiments, crew supplies and space station hardware. It is scheduled to arrive Thursday at the space station for its robotic capture at 5:20 a.m. NASA TV will cover the approach and rendezvous activities starting at 3:30 a.m.
Three NASA astronauts, Scott Tingle, Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel, have trained for weeks to get ready for Cygnus’ arrival on Thursday. Tingle will be operating the Canadarm2 from inside the Cupola and command the robotic arm to grapple Cygnus. Arnold will back him up on the robotics controls and Feustel will monitor Cygnus and it systems during its approach. Robotics engineers on the ground will then remotely install the commercial space freighter on the Earth-facing port of the Unity module later Thursday morning.
One of the new experiments being delivered aboard Cygnus to the orbital laboratory will study atoms frozen to a temperature 10 billion times colder than deep space. The Cold Atom Lab will observe the quantum phenomena possibly leading to advanced spacecraft navigation techniques and quantum sensors that can detect gravitational and magnetic fields.
Chen Yue with 435/2250 MHz feed for the 12m dish at the DSLWP ground station – Image credit Wei Mingchuan BG2BHC
DSLWP Lunar Satellite
