Author: Tariq Malik / Source: Space.com
WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — An Antares rocket soared into the afternoon sky over Virginia on Wednesday (April 17) carrying tons of NASA supplies — and 40 intrepid mice — to the International Space Station.
The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket and its uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft launched into the cosmos from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, kicking off a two-day voyage to the space station.
Liftoff occurred at 4:46 p.m. EDT (2046 GMT).If all goes well, the spacecraft will arrive at the orbiting lab early Friday (April 19) to deliver 7,600 lbs. (3,447 kilograms) of science gear and supplies to the six-person crew of the International Space Station. The mission, called NG-11, is the eleventh cargo flight for NASA by Northrop Grumman and will be the company’s longest one to date.
“Around half of the cargo that Cygnus is bringing is dedicated to science for us on the International Space Station,” said Pete Hasbrook, NASA’s manager for space station science, during a prelaunch briefing. The gear will support at least 30 of the nearly 300 ongoing studies on the orbiting laboratory, he added.
Big science on Cygnus
The mice aboard Cygnus are at the core of one such study, which aims to test the effectiveness of an anti-tetanus vaccine. The rodents are split into two groups of 20; half will receive the vaccine in space and the other 20 will not receive the vaccine. Scientists will study the mice to see how the animals responded to the vaccine once they are back on Earth.
Other wild science experiments on Cygnus include testing out two robotic systems; Seeker, which is designed to hunt for air leaks on the Space Station, and Astrobee, which aims to help the station’s staff with tasks such as inventory and maintenance. There’s gear to build pristine ZBLAN fiber-optic cables in space, and a prototype for a novel air scrubber that removes carbon dioxide from the station’s atmosphere.
On the exterior of the Cygnus are a series of tiny satellites that will be deployed after the spacecraft leaves the space station this summer. These 60 so-called ThinSats (tiny satellites) were built by elementary and high school students; one NASA CubeSat was built by students at both the University of Indiana and University of Illinois, Northrop Grumman officials said.
“The ThinSats are small STEM satellites built by students in 70 schools located in nine states,” said Kurt Eberly, Antares vice president for Northrop Grumman, said in the prelaunch briefing. “After the thinsats are deployed, students will collect and analyze data transmitted from their satellite for approximately five days before it deorbits and burns up in the atmosphere.”
Nearly 250 students from the ThinSat schools were expected to attend today’s launch. (In fact, Wallops Flight Facility officials were expecting record crowds — in the thousands — due to the mid-afternoon launch…
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