Orbital Launches First Cargo Mission to Space Station

SOURCE

WASHINGTON -- Orbital Sciences Corp. (IW 500/446) today launched its unmanned Cygnus cargo ship on the company's first regular supply mission to the International Space Station.

The liftoff of the Antares rocket carrying the ship took place at 1:07 pm from Wallops Island in Virginia, according to footage carried by NASA's television network.

"It is a beautiful launch occurring on time with perfect weather," a NASA commentator said.

The cargo vehicle separated from the rocket's second stage 10 minutes after the launch as planned.

Cygnus is due to dock at the International Space Station on Sunday, only the fifth mooring of a private vessel to the station. The first was California company SpaceX's (IW 500/) Dragon in May 2012.

This is super cool, I wasn't aware outside of at least Virgins efforts that private firms are actually carrying out missions into space. I think it is a good thing that private companies are being afforded the ability to start making space technology and conduct missions even if it is for NASA, I think if this continues it will lead to better competition and that means more exploration of space. Very awesome!

It also means the virus will now spread!

This is very neat!
But this makes me question...

Orbital has a contract with NASA worth $1.9 billion for eight cargo resupply missions to the global space lab.

Is NASA really saving money by hiring private firms to do this?

SpaceX and Bigalow airspace are also ones to watch too.

reply to post by chiefsmom


I'm not really sure to be honest but I would imagine it isn't cheap sending anything into space and to have 8 shipments of vessels that are consumable cannot be cheap. That's 8 launches with 8 vessels that will be destroyed after the cargo is unloaded.