Cygnus Resupply:

The failure of the Russian Progress resupply ship highlighted the delicate balance of ensuring the International Space Station (ISS) can support a six person crew during the transition between the loss of the Space Shuttle’s huge capability and the addition of a commercial resupply vehicles which will be launched by Orbital and SpaceX.

Thanks to Atlantis’ STS-135 mission, the ISS is in no risk from a logistics standpoint, but the future of the Station’s full utilization role – not least in the year 2013 – requires the support of both SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital’s Cygnus making resupply runs to the orbital outpost, an arrangement fostered by NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract.

SpaceX are still waiting to hear confirmation that they will be able to accelerate their original demonstration schedule, by way of combining flight 2 and 3 of their Dragon demonstrations, while Orbital’s Cygnus is expected to debut early next year for what will be only one demonstration flight.

A key milestone for Orbital’s drive towards ISS resupply missions was the arrival of the PCM at its Wallops launch site, following a transatlantic flight from its manufacturing location in Italy.

The PCM was unloaded from the Antonov An-124 transport aircraft in its specialized shipping container, prior to being transported to NASA’s H-100 payload processing facility, where it will be uncrated later this week and prepared for integration with Orbital’s spacecraft service module.

Thales Alenia Space will provide Orbital with eight more pressurized modules for cargo missions to the ISS. The first PCM will be followed by three more units in “standard” configuration, capable of transporting up to 2,000 kg of cargo each, along with five “enhanced” configuration units, boosting payload capacity to 2,700 kg.

The Cygnus vehicle consists of an advanced service module and a PCM. The service module incorporates avionics, power and propulsion systems from Orbital’s flight-proven LEOStar and GEOStar satellite product lines.

Based on NASA’s requirements, it will deliver crew supplies, scientific experiments and equipment, spares parts and other essential cargo to the ISS.

The Cygnus PCM developed via Thales Alenia Space’s experience with the ISS, as seen with their MPLM (Multi-purpose Logistics Module) which rode numerous times with Shuttle to the orbital outpost – which was built by the company on behalf of the Italian space agency for NASA.

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The Italian-based company are also a major player with the ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) Cargo Carrier, built for the European Space Agency (ESA). Thales Alenia Space was also a key player in the Columbus laboratory and prime contractor for Node 2, Node 3 and the Cupola – all now on orbit with the ISS.

Together, the PCM and the service module will form the first operational Cygnus that will be launched to the ISS to carry out a demonstration mission, which follows a test flight of the Taurus II launch vehicle at the end of this year.

Taurus II is a two-stage launch vehicle designed for medium-class payloads weighing up to 5750 kg. The vehicle’s system utilizes identical management approaches, engineering standards, production and test processes common to Orbital’s family of small-class Pegasus, Taurus, and Minotaur launch vehicles.

Taurus II incorporates both solid and liquid stages which meet medium-class mission requirements for variety of low inclination low-Earth and sun synchronous orbits and interplanetary trajectories.

The vehicle sports a 3.9 meter fairing to accommodates large payloads such as the Cygnus, while streamlined vehicle/payload integration and testing via simplified interfaces reduce time from encapsulation to lift-off.

Taurus II is capable of launching single and multiple payloads from the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), although it is compatible with the Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), the Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) and Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC).

Following the Taurus II test flight and the Cygnus COTS demonstration mission, Orbital will press immediately forward into their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, with the first CRS flight scheduled to take place in the second quarter of 2012.

“The arrival of the first pressurized cargo module at Wallops is an important milestone for the Cygnus program, signifying that we are making great progress toward carrying out the COTS demonstration mission early next year,” said Mr. Frank DeMauro, Orbital’s Cygnus Program Manager.

“With the first fully-assembled service module currently in testing at our Dulles, Virginia satellite design and production facilities, it won’t be too long before both of the major elements are united at Wallops for final system integration, followed by integration with the Taurus II rocket that will launch Cygnus to the International Space Station.”

The deal to carry out ISS resupply flights – under the $1.9 billion CRS contract – encompasses eight missions between 2012 and 2015 carrying approximately 20,000 kg of cargo to the ISS.

“This is one more important step in our partnership with U.S. private industry to build safe, reliable and cost effective cargo transportation systems,” said Philip McAlister, acting director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters in  Washington. “We are pleased that Orbital has made this accomplishment and look forward to the company flying the Cygnus spacecraft in 2012.”

The debut CRS runs by Dragon and Cygnus will provide the United States with an ability to custom design payloads required by the ISS, as full utilization takes hold on orbit.

It will also mark the first tangible step towards the US regaining its domestic human space flight capability, with several manned vehicles currently being designed via the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) contracts, prior to a NASA decision on which vehicles it will buy services from to launch its astronauts to the ISS.

(Images: Orbital) (As the shuttle fleet retire, NSF and L2 are providing full transition level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS/CRS/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles. 

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can access L2)

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“OCO did not achieve orbit successfully,” noted PAO George Diller in an anomaly update. “We are still looking at the telemetry, and it appeared there were indications of problems with fairing sep, but we not sure at this time.

“Controllers are checking the status of the spacecraft, to confirm location and orbit. However, the data around fairing sep is not what we expected to be. We believe that is what happened during the failure.

“Right now we do know we have not had a successful launch and will not be able to have a successful mission.”

A later update confirmed the vehicle had failed to make orbit – due to lack of Delta V that would have been gained by the loss of the heavy fairing,  resulting in the spacecraft eventually splashed down near Antarctica, it is believed.

“When fairing comes off, little wires that are looped back break. We did not get indications that those broke,” noted Taurus Program manager John Brunschwyler.

“Temps did not change after it should have separated. And fairing is pretty heavy, so jump in acceleration. We did not get that jump.”

The failure – the first under the watch of NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) – will lead to an investigation board being set up, whilst evaluations take place into the amount of flight spares, should NASA decide order a new OCO.

Taurus’ next mission, with the GLORY satellite, will remain on hold, pending the conclusion of the investigation.

Mission outline:

The Taurus series of launch vehicles are based on the three stages of the Pegasus vehicle – minus the wings – with a new upper stage. Versions which have flown include the Taurus 1110 and Taurus 2110, with Taurus XL used for launching OCO.

Taurus XL, which debuted on May 20, 2004, uses a Thiokol Castor 120 driven solid motor, an Orion 50SXL as the second stage, an Orion 50XL as the third stage and a Alliant Tech Orion 38 solid as the final stage. It is capable to placing a 1363 kg payload into low-Earth orbit. OCO will be sent to a polar orbit of 438 miles.

Orbital Sciences is also as developing Taurus II, a medium-lift design that utilizes a liquid fuel first stage. This vehicle is at the center of the company’s CRS (Commercial Resupply Services) contract.

Orbital Sciences also built the OCO spacecraft, which will make the first space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), a well-known as a greenhouse gas.

The mission will be conducted under the management of NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program during the spacecraft’s 24 month lifetime.

Each carbon dioxide molecule includes one carbon atom (C) sandwiched between two oxygen (O) atoms, forming a linear molecule, with the structure O=C=O, which is where the spacecraft gained its name.

Scientists will analyze OCO data to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that regulate the abundance and distribution of this important greenhouse gas. This improved understanding will enable more reliable forecasts of future changes in the abundance and distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere and the effect that these changes may have on the Earth’s climate.

The measurements will be combined with data from ground stations, aircraft and other satellites to help answer questions about the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide and its role in Earth’s climate and carbon cycle.

“It’s critical that we understand the processes controlling carbon dioxide in our atmosphere today so we can predict how fast it will build up in the future and how quickly we’ll have to adapt to climate change caused by carbon dioxide build-up,” said David Crisp, principal investigator for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Observatory will fly in loose formation with a series of other Earth orbiting satellites known as the Earth Observing System Afternoon Constellation, or the A-train. This coordinated flight formation will enable researchers to correlate OCO data with data acquired by other instruments on Earth observing spacecraft.

In particular, Earth scientists will compare OCO data with nearly simultaneous measurements acquired by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. The AIRS instrument files on the Earth Observing System Aqua platform.

“OCO’s carbon dioxide measurements will be pivotal in advancing our knowledge of virtually all Earth system land, atmosphere, and ocean processes,” added Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington. “They will play crucial roles in refining our knowledge of climate forcings and Earth’s response processes.”

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory’s three high-resolution spectrometers spread reflected sunlight into its various colors like a prism. Each spectrometer focuses on a different, narrow color range, detecting light with the specific colors absorbed by carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen.

The less carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, the more light the spectrometers detect. By analyzing the amount of light, scientists can determine relative concentrations of these chemicals. The data will then be input into computer models of the global atmosphere to quantify carbon dioxide sources and sinks.

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