AIMM Heads to Wallops Flight Facility for Orbital Resupply Mission to Space Station

Orbital Sciences Corp. will launch its next mission to resupply the International Space Station Monday, Oct. 27, and AIMM will assist NASA Television in the broadcast live coverage of the event, including pre- and post-launch briefings and arrival at the station.

Orbital Science’s Cygnus cargo carrier is transported Oct. 16, 2014 from the NASA fueling facility on Wallops Island, Virginia to the Horizontal Integration Facility where it will be mated to the Antares rocket for the Orbital CRS-3 cargo mission to the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA/Jamie Lee Adkins

Orbital’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 6:45 p.m. EDT from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Launch Pad 0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Launch coverage begins at 5:45 p.m.

A prelaunch status briefing will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26, followed at 2 p.m. by a briefing to preview the mission’s science cargo. A post-launch briefing will be held approximately 90 minutes after liftoff.
Media who wish to ask questions remotely during the briefing must respond to Rachel Kraft at rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov no later than 30 minutes before the start of each briefing. The public may submit questions via Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.

Cygnus will transport almost 5,000 pounds of supplies, including science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and experiment hardware. It will arrive at the station Sunday, Nov. 2. Expedition 41 crew members Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore of NASA will be ready in the station’s cupola to capture the resupply craft with the station’s robotic arm and install it on the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony module.

NASA TV coverage of capture and installation will begin at 3:30 a.m. Nov. 2, followed by grapple at 4:58 a.m. Coverage of the installation of Cygnus onto the International Space Station will begin at 7 a.m. The capsule is scheduled to depart the station Wednesday, Dec. 3, and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere during reentry.

Continuing the tradition of naming its spacecraft after astronauts who have made significant contributions to spaceflight, Orbital dubbed this Cygnus resupply ship the SS Deke Slayton. The name is a tribute to original Mercury 7 astronaut Donald “Deke” K. Slayton, who flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission in 1975 and championed commercial space endeavors after retiring from NASA in 1982. Slayton passed away in 1993.
This mission is the third of eight Orbital flights NASA contracted with the company to resupply the space station, and the fourth trip by a Cygnus spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory.
For a full media schedule and more information about the Orbital CRS-3 mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/orbital
For video b-roll and media resources on the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/stationnews
For more information about the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

SpaceX Launch of NASA Cargo to Space Station Set for Friday, Spacewalk Wednesday

SpaceX Prelaunch Image – courtesy of NASA

NASA and SpaceX are targeting a 3:25 p.m. EDT launch on Friday, April 18, of SpaceX’s third cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. NASA Television coverage will begin at 2:15 p.m.

The company’s April 14 launch to the orbiting laboratory was scrubbed due to a helium leak in the Falcon 9 rocket that will launch the Dragon spacecraft to the space station.

Dragon is carrying to the space station almost 5,000 pounds of science and research, crew supplies, vehicle hardware and spacewalk tools — all to support the crew and more than 150 scientific investigations planned for Expeditions 39 and 40. If needed, another launch attempt will take place at 3:02 p.m. Saturday, April 19.

NASA Television coverage of Dragon’s arrival at the space station will begin at 5:45 a.m. Sunday, April 20. Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will use the space station’s robotic arm to capture the spacecraft at approximately 7 a.m. NASA’s Rick Mastracchio will support Wakata during the rendezvous. NASA Television coverage will resume at 9:30 a.m., as the Dragon is attached to the Earth-facing port of the space station’s Harmony module.

An April 18 launch will allow the space station program to plan for a spacewalk on Wednesday, April 23, to replace a failed multiplexer-demultiplexer (MDM) relay system. The prime MDM, which is operating normally, and the failed backup computer provide commands to some space station systems, including the external cooling system, Solar Alpha Rotary joints and Mobile Transporter rail car.

A separate media advisory providing NASA TV coverage times for the April 23 spacewalk will be issued at a later date.

For the latest information on the SpaceX mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/spacex

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For the latest information on the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

AIMM Prepares for ORB-1 Launch

AIMM’s Senior Vice President, Engineering & Digital Technologies, Jeff Elliott is heading back to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility this week in preparation for the ISS Commercial Resupply Services Mission (ORB-1) launch. The launch is currently scheduled for Tuesday, December 17, at approximately 10:04 p.m. from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. AIMM will be providing broadcast engineering and video production support.

According to Orbital’s mission updates, Antares and Cygnus teams are in the advanced stages of preparation for the operational resupply mission to the International Space Station. Over the next 11 days, major operational events are scheduled to take place. Among them, the movement of the Antares rocket to the transporter/erector/launcher (TEL) and a series of tests to ensure all systems are properly working together. The roll out and initial on-pad operations that are currently scheduled for December 15.

To read more about the launch click here.

 

ANTARES / CYGNUS UPDATE

AIMM is at Wallops Island Virginia again this week preparing the studio that will air the live video stream for the ANTARES Rocket and CYGNUS Spacecraft test launch. The test launch, which was originally set to take place today, was postponed until tomorrow. We’ve just received confirmation that the launch will proceed as planned. Stay tuned for the link to watch it live tomorrow at 10:50am. 

Courtesy of http://www.nasa.gov

Wallops Grants Authority to Proceed for Launch of Orbital Demonstration Mission

September 17, 2013 – 10:14 AM EDT

NASA Wallops Flight Facility Site Director Bill Wrobel has granted Authority to Proceed (ATP) for the Wednesday, Sept. 18, launch of a demonstration mission to the International Space Station by the Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. Orbital is targeting a 10:50 a.m. EDT launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A at Wallops.