Orbital Buys Second Atlas V for Cargo Launch, Antares Progressing to Return to Flight

Orbital ATK revealed today that it has purchased a second Atlas V rocket to launch a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).  The company already planned to use Atlas V for a December launch and now will use a second in 2016 along with two or three launches of its revamped Antares rocket.  An October 2014  Antares failure was the first of three failed cargo launches to ISS in less than a year that disrupted cargo deliveries, although NASA insists that U.S. ISS operations are unaffected. 

The company plans to use an Atlas V to launch Cygnus in December 2015, the first Cygnus launch under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA since the October 2014 failure.   Today’s press release said only “early December,” but NASA officials have publicly stated that the launch is scheduled for December 3. Orbital ATK refers to it as the “OA-4” mission.  Two successful Antares/Cygnus CRS cargo missions were flown by Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orb-1 and Orb-2) before its merger with ATK earlier this year.  The third in the series, Orb-3, was the failure.

In 2016, Orbital ATK will carry out “at least three more CRS missions: two (or possibly three) will be launched by Antares rockets … and one more will be launched aboard Atlas V,” according to Orbital ATK Space Systems President Frank Culbertson. 

The Antares return-to-flight mission is expected in the first quarter of 2016 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, VA.  Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said last week that repairs to the MARS facility, which is owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, are almost complete.  Virginia Space, Orbital ATK and NASA are equally sharing the $15 million cost of the repairs.  McAuliffe said that a new arrangement has been negotiated with Orbital ATK regarding repair costs and insurance coverage for future missions.

The October 2014  Antares failure was caused by one of the Russian NK33 rocket engines (refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne and redesignated AJ26) and Orbital ATK is replacing them with a different Russian engine, RD-181.  Two engines are needed for each Antares rocket and Orbital ATK President and CEO David Thompson said during an investor teleconference last week that the engines were delivered in June and are being integrated into the Antares airframe now.  The retrofitted Antares will roll out to the pad in January for a “hot fire” engine test, Thompson added, although today’s announcement said it could take place late this year or in January.  No announcement was made about exactly when the launch is planned, but March has been mentioned elsewhere.

Under the original CRS contract, Orbital ATK and its competitor, SpaceX, are each required to deliver 20 tons of cargo to the ISS by the end of 2016.   NASA awarded extensions to both companies’ contracts to cover launches in 2017.  Thompson said last week that Orbital ATK was awarded two of them.  Orbital ATK has upgraded the Cygnus capsule so it can carry more mass so it anticipates that it can meet its contractual requirements using fewer launches than previously planned.

NASA and its ISS partners are recovering from a spate of cargo launch failures:  the October 28, 2014 Antares failure, a Russian Progress M-27M failure on April 28, 2015, and a SpaceX CRS-7 failure on June 28, 2015.   The Russians have since successfully launched another Progress.  A date for SpaceX Falcon 9 launches to resume has not been announced.

The next cargo mission to the ISS will be Japan’s HTV5, which is scheduled for August 16, 2015.  Europe no longer launches its ATV cargo vehicle, so Japan’s HTV, Russia’s Progress, and the two U.S. capsules — Orbital ATK’s Cygnus and SpaceX’s Dragon — are the four vehicles used to deliver cargo at the present time.