Orbital ATK has rescheduled the launch of its Cygnus spacecraft for Friday — a day later than originally planned. According to NASA, the teams for the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft ran into a “minor vehicle processing issue” over the weekend. NASA and Orbital also had to deal with the preparation and aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, which struck the East Coast over the weekend as well.
Orbital will now shoot for an 8:51 p.m. Eastern Time launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Eastern Shore, Virginia. Cygnus should reach the International Space Station at approximately 6:05 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, October 17.
The Cygnus vehicle will be hauling up more than 5,000 pounds of cargo as part of Orbital’s contract with NASA to fulfill ISS resupply needs. There’s a lot of pretty epic science being brought to space station, along with essential cargo necessary for maintaining daily life aboard the station.
Cygnus isn't much to look at but it carries some pretty cool stuff.
Cygnus will remain attached the space station until November 18. The most exciting part about the mission, however, comes at the end, when NASA and Orbital will ignite a series of fires aboard the departing Cygnus spacecraft in order to study the behavior of flames in microgravity.
This Saffire-2 experiment is a follow-up to the Saffire-1 testing, which successfully occurred in June and consumed another Cygnus vehicle in orbit.
You can follow Friday’s launch on NASA TV or at the agency’s website.
