Orbital ATK Completes Significant Milestone on International Space Station Cargo Delivery Mission for NASA
October 12 2015 - 12:16PM
Business Wire
Cygnus Service Module Shipped to Kennedy
Space Center for December Launch
OA-4 Mission on Schedule to Meet Cargo
Requirements for NASA
Orbital ATK, Inc. (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and
defense technologies, announced it has shipped the Cygnus
spacecraft’s service module to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the
next International Space Station (ISS) cargo mission, scheduled to
launch on Thursday, December 3. Today’s OA-4 mission milestone
marks a key step forward as Orbital ATK continues its cargo
delivery service to the ISS for NASA under the Commercial Resupply
Services (CRS) contract.
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The OA-4 service module departs Orbital
ATK's Satellite Manufacturing facility in Dulles, Virginia for an
upcoming launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Photo: Business
Wire)
The Cygnus spacecraft will be assembled at Kennedy and launched
aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The mission serves
as the first flight of the enhanced variant of the Cygnus
spacecraft, capable of delivering more than 7,700 pounds of
essential crew supplies, equipment and scientific experiments to
astronauts on board the ISS.
The service module, which houses the spacecraft’s avionics,
electrical, propulsion and communications systems, will integrate
with an extended pressurized cargo module (PCM) already in place at
the Kennedy Space Center. The PCM’s capability to deliver larger
volumes of cargo to the station aboard the powerful Atlas V
provides even greater support to NASA’s continued research and
utilization of the International Space Station. The spacecraft will
also use the latest in lightweight space-qualified power system
technology with the addition of the company’s Ultraflex solar
arrays. OA-4 marks the first mission to use the Ultraflex solar
arrays which were produced by Orbital ATK’s Space Components
Division.
“These are exciting times for the Cygnus team at Orbital ATK,”
said Frank Culbertson, President of Orbital ATK’s Space Systems
Group. “With OA-4 set to launch in December and at least three
additional missions to the Space Station planned in 2016, we remain
solidly on schedule to meet our CRS cargo requirements for NASA.
Our team’s performance in meeting milestones on an accelerated
timeline demonstrates the company’s flexibility and responsiveness
to customer needs.”
Final assembly, cargo loading and fueling of the Cygnus
spacecraft will take place at the Kennedy Space Center prior to its
integration with the Atlas V rocket. Like most Orbital ATK
spacecraft, Cygnus is designed to be compatible with multiple
launch vehicles. This capability supports NASA’s requirements for
additional cargo and also provides better schedule assurance for
future missions.
While preparations continue for OA-4 later this year, three CRS
missions are scheduled for 2016 to support NASA’s ISS cargo needs,
leading off with a second Atlas V launched mission from Kennedy
Space Center in the spring, followed by the return of operations to
the Wallops Flight Facility in the first half of the year where the
company will continue CRS missions on an upgraded Antares. The PCMs
and Service Modules for the three 2016 Cygnus spacecraft missions
are essentially complete and will be shipped to the respective
launch sites a couple of months prior to their launch dates.
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Public Relationsvicki.cox@orbitalatk.comorInvestor
Contact:Barron Beneski, 703-406-5528Public and Investor
Relationsbarron.beneski@orbitalatk.com
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