Both Orbital Sciences [ORB] and United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched payloads into space yesterday.
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| Launch of Atlas V Photo: ULA |
One of ULA’s Atlas V rockets carrying the Air Force’s third Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., yesterday at 4:10 a.m. EDT, according to a company statement. The AEHF constellation is a joint-service satellite communications system that will provide survivable, global, secure, protected and jam-resistant communications for high-priority military ground, sea and air assets. Lockheed Martin [LMT] is the AEHF prime contractor.
Orbital successfully launched its Cygnus cargo spacecraft aboard its Antares rocket at 10:58 a.m. EDT yesterday from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in eastern Virginia, headed for the International Space Station (ISS), according to an agency statement.
Traveling 17,500 mph in Earth’s orbit, Cygnus is on its way to rendezvous with ISS Sunday. The spacecraft will deliver about 1,300 pounds of cargo, including food and clothing, to the Expedition 37 crew, who will grapple and attach the capsule using the station’s robotic arm. Over the next several days, Cygnus will perform a series of maneuvers to test and prove its systems, ensuring it can safely enter the so-called “keep-out sphere” of the space station, a 656-foot radius surrounding the complex.
Orbital is building and testing its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. The successful completion of the COTS demonstration mission will pave the way for Orbital to conduct eight planned cargo resupply flights to the space station through NASA’s $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with the company.
ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA].