Originally published on September 19, 2013
An unmanned Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo spacecraft launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Wednesday (September 18) bound for the International Space Station. The Cygnus is carrying 1,543 pounds (700 kg) of food, clothing and other supplies to the International Space Station.
The Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket, both built by commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences Corp., blasted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island at 10:58 a.m. EDT, according to Reuters.
The Cygnus is now in orbit and headed toward the International Space Station, where it will be captured by the space station's robotic arm and dock with the space station early Sunday (September 22). Its mission is due to end on October 22, when it will then be filled with trash from the space station and burn up on descent.
NASA wants private companies to conduct routine cargo transport missions to low Earth orbit. The space agency aims to replace the now-retired Space Shuttle and end its reliance on Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.
Another space company, California-based SpaceX, launched its Falcon rocket with a Dragon capsule from Cape Canaveral in October of 2012. Unlike Cygnus, the SpaceX Dragon can return items from the space station when it parachutes into the Pacific off the coast of Southern California. SpaceX, which began work 18 months before Orbital Sciences, has already made three trips to the space station.
According to a Reuters report: "NASA has invested $686 million in Orbital Sciences and SpaceX and awarded the firms contracts totaling $3.5 billion to fly cargo to the station."
"The current mission," the report continues, "is intended to show Orbital Sciences' ability to transport cargo to the space station. A successful flight may boost its chances for additional NASA work, and could attract commercial and scientific customers for the Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule."
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