Cygnus CRS OA-8 (S.S. Gene Cernan)
Antares 230
Orbital ATK
Rocket Launch Videos
Weather Forecast During Launch
According to weather officials, there's a 95% chance of favorable weather conditions at the time of the launch.
Mission
Cygnus CRS OA-8 (S.S. Gene Cernan)
- Type: Resupply
- Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
This is the ninth planned flight of the Orbital ATK's unmanned resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its eighth flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.
Location
Launch Area 0 A
Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA
Launch Area 0 A has witnessed the launch of 19 rockets, including 19 orbital launch attempts. While Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA, has been the site for 80 rocket launches.
Wallops Flight Facility is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and north-northeast of Norfolk. The facility is operated by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and primarily serves to support science and exploration missions for NASA and other federal agencies. WFF includes an extensively instrumented range to support launches of more than a dozen types of sounding rockets; small expendable suborbital and orbital rockets; high-altitude balloon flights carrying scientific instruments for atmospheric and astronomical research; and, using its Research Airport, flight tests of aeronautical research aircraft, including uncrewed aerial vehicles.
Rocket
Northrop Grumman Space Systems Antares 230
Antares known during early development as Taurus II, is an expendable launch system developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation (now part of Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems after Northrop Grumman acquired Orbital ATK) and the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau to launch the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's COTS and CRS programs. Able to launch payloads heavier than 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) into low-Earth orbit, Antares is the largest rocket operated by Orbital ATK. Antares launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and made its inaugural flight on April 21, 2013.
Agency
Orbital ATK
Orbital ATK Inc. was an American aerospace manufacturer and defense industry company. It was formed in 2015 from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alliant Techsystems. Orbital ATK was purchased by Northrop Grumman in 2018.
