NEXT SPACEFLIGHT

Status

Success

CRS OA-5

Launch Time
Mon Oct 17, 2016 23:45 UTC

First launch of Enhanced Cygnus on Orbital's new Antares 230. Return to launch of Antares after the CRS Orb-3 failure. First flight of the RD-181s engines.

Rocket

Antares 230
Image Credit: NASA
Northrop
Status: Retired
Price: $85.0 million
Liftoff Thrust: 3,844 kN
Payload to LEO: 7,000 kg
Stages: 2
Strap-ons: 0
Rocket Height: 41.9 m
Fairing Diameter: 3.9 m
Fairing Height: 9.9 m

Mission Details

Cygnus OA-5

Cygnus OA-5 (Orbital ATK-5) is a cargo resupply mission of the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.

Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK) and NASA jointly developed a new space transportation system to provide commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. The Cygnus cargo ship consists of two parts, a service module built in the USA based on the GEOStar platform, and a pressurized module, manufactured in France and Italy by Thales Alenia. The cargo is sent into orbit by a launcher specially developed for this purpose.

Antares has a first stage based on Energiya lateral blocks, made in Ukraine by Yuzhnoye. It was initially powered by two NK-33s, built in the 1960s for the Soviet N1 lunar launcher, before being replaced by RD-181s, derived from the RD-170s installed on Energiya and Zenit. The second stage, a Castor-30, is made in the USA, by Northrop Grumman.

CRS OA-5 was captured by RMS on 23/10/2016 at 11:28 UTC and berthed to the Nadir port of the Unity module of the International Space Station on 23/10/2016 at 14:53 UTC. Its stay on the ISS was 28 days. It was unberthed on 21/11/2016 at 11:25 UTC and released by RMS on 21/11/2016 at 13:22 UTC. It deorbited on 27/11/2016 at 23:36 UTC.

Payloads: 1
Total Mass: 2,425.0 kg
Low Earth Orbit

Location

LP-0A, Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA

Stats

2016

63rd orbital launch attempt

Antares

6th mission
1st mission of 2016
5th successful mission
1st consecutive successful mission