Northrop Grumman Antares/Cygnus NG-18 Cargo Launch to the International Space Station

SCANALYZER The Happening World
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Northrop Grumman plans to launch its NG-18 cargo mission to the International Space Station at 10:50 UTC on 2022-11-06 from LP-0A at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The Cygnus cargo ship, named S. S. Sally Ride, will have a mass of 8.12 tonnes. This will be the next to last Cygnus launch on the Antares 230+ launcher, which is built in Ukraine and uses Russian RD-181 engines. After NG-19, the next launch, the next three Cygnus missions will launch on SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters. After that, the plan is to use the Antares 330 which is being jointly developed by Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace.

Here is more on the flight from NASASpaceflight.com.

Here is the NASA/Northrop Grumman pre-launch briefing for the mission.

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Today’s launch attempt (2022-11-06) was scrubbed at 11 minutes before liftoff due to a fire alarm in the Northrop Grumman control centre in Dulles, Virginia, which takes control of the Cygnus spacecraft after it reaches orbit. The control room could not be cleared as safe for controllers to return to their stations in time, requiring cancellation of the launch.

The next launch attempt is scheduled for Monday, 2022-11-07, at 10:27 UTC.

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Interesting that with all the anti-Russia/pro-Ukraine embargoes, there are apparently joint US-Russia spacewalks planned in the next month or two.

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