The Orbital ATK Antares rocket in the Horizontal Integration Facility at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility awaits rollout to the pad for launch at 7:37 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 11, to the International Space Station. The Antares rocket, with the Cygnus cargo spacecraft, is scheduled for the 1-mile, 2-hour roll to the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad 0A in the early morning on Nov. 9. The 72-hour forecast shows a 95 percent probability of acceptable weather for launch on Nov. 11. Cygnus will carry about 7,400 pounds of crew supplies and hardware to the space station, including science and research in support of dozens of research investigations that will occur during Expeditions 53 and 54.
Cygnus will carry several CubeSats that will conduct a variety of missions, from technology demonstrations of laser communication and increased data downlink rates to an investigation to study spaceflight effects on bacterial antibiotic resistance. Other experiments will advance biological monitoring aboard the station and look at various elements of plant growth in microgravity that may help inform plant cultivation strategies for future long-term space missions. The spacecraft will also transport a virtual reality camera to record a National Geographic educational special on Earth as a natural life-support system.
Credit: NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility/Patrick Black