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Orbital's Antares rocket makes test flight | |
(35 minutes later) | |
A new rocket has launched from the US eastern seaboard to prove its readiness to help service the International Space Station (ISS). | |
The 40m-tall Antares vehicle lifted clear of the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 1700 local time (2100 GMT). | The 40m-tall Antares vehicle lifted clear of the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 1700 local time (2100 GMT). |
The apparently flawless 10-minute ascent should lead to it being allowed to propel an unmanned cargo ship towards the ISS later this year. | |
Antares has been developed by the Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC). | Antares has been developed by the Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC). |
The Dulles-based company is one of a number of commercial outfits that have partnered with the US space agency (Nasa) to create cheaper technologies for getting payloads and astronauts into orbit. | The Dulles-based company is one of a number of commercial outfits that have partnered with the US space agency (Nasa) to create cheaper technologies for getting payloads and astronauts into orbit. |
The agency has so far invested some $275m in OSC to help it advance its rocket and cargo-vessel concepts. | The agency has so far invested some $275m in OSC to help it advance its rocket and cargo-vessel concepts. |
A contract worth $1.9bn, covering eight re-supply missions to the station, will be triggered once the company has satisfactorily demonstrated its designs. | A contract worth $1.9bn, covering eight re-supply missions to the station, will be triggered once the company has satisfactorily demonstrated its designs. |
Sunday's test-flight required the two-stage Antares rocket raise itself to an altitude of about 255km where it jettisoned a dummy payload. | |
That 3.8-tonne test mass was intended to simulate the Cygnus cargo ship, which will make its maiden outing on the next launch of the rocket. | |
Orbital is an established Nasa contractor, which has been building satellites and smaller rockets for more than 30 years. | |
The company was chosen by the agency to pick up some of the ISS servicing capability lost by America when it retired its space shuttles two years ago. | |
A second firm, SpaceX of California, is further along in its development schedule, having already completed its test flights and begun commercially contracted missions to the ISS. | |
OSC packed Sunday's Antares full of sensors to gather as much data as possible on its performance. | |
Everything on the flight appeared to proceed extremely smoothly. All the major events such as rocket-stage separation, fairing separation, and the ejection of the dummy payload occurred on cue. | |
But Nasa will want to review the flight data before deciding whether to release more seed funding to Orbital, and to clear the company for a Cygnus freighter demonstration mission to the ISS. All being well, this could occur in late June or early July. | |
Italian job | |
One interesting aspect of the Antares design is its use of two Aerojet AJ-26 engines on its liquid-fuelled first stage. | |
These are modified, Russian-built power units that were originally developed for the ill-fated Soviet Moon rocket, the N-1. | |
The Antares second-stage - the segment that deploys the payload at the target altitude - is powered by a solid-fuel motor. This was provided by ATK, the company that used to make the solid-fuelled boosters for the shuttles. | |
OSC hopes to use the Antares for other ventures besides keeping the space station stocked with food and equipment. | |
It has worked with an economic development agency in Virginia to bring the Wallops launch facility up to a standard that would permit many more flights from the coastal spaceport, which in the past has been used for small research rockets. | |
OSC has developed its Cygnus freighter with Italian company Thales Alenia Space (TAS). | |
The pressurised segment of this cargo ship is based on TAS's Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, or MPLM. This was the "packing box" put in the back of space shuttles when they hauled supplies to the ISS. | |
Two versions of Cygnus are being built. One can carry two tonnes, the other nearly three tonnes. | |
Unlike SpaceX's Dragon capsule, the OSC freighter cannot bring materials back to the Earth's surface. | |
Instead, Cygnus will be filled with rubbish from the ISS and allowed to burn up in the planet's atmosphere. | |
Sunday's demonstration flight also released three "nano-satellites" controlled by smartphones. These mini-spacecraft, which only measure 10cm across, will operate for a few weeks before falling back to Earth. | |
The dummy Cygnus will also begin its descent to Earth in about a fortnight. | |
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos | Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos |