Today at 10:50 a.m. EDT (1450 GMT) a new commercial spaceship is scheduled to be launched from Virginia’s Eastern Shore on a critical test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
Dubbed as Cygnus, the spacecraft will be unmanned. It is the first space cargo ship built by Orbital Sciences Corp. to haul food and other vital supplies for NASA astronauts on the orbiting lab.
The launching of the Cygnus spacecraft can be watched live on Space.com website from 10:15 a.m. EDT (1415 GMT) onward. People in the U.S. East Coast area from New York City to South Carolina can also see the launching with naked eye if weather permits. NASA has predicted the weather will be clear today at the time of launching.
Addressing to a press conference yesterday NASA test director Sarah Daugherty said, “If you’re anywhere on the central East Coast there, you should be able to get a glimpse of the launch tomorrow.”
The mission was scheduled for yesterday, but it was postponed due to minor technical glitch.
Orbital Sciences Corp has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA and will be delivering eight more such vehicles and Antares rockets. Its executive vice president Frank Culbertson said, “Orbital has been involved in human spaceflight for a long time, but this is the first time we’ve ever actually launched a dedicated spacecraft carrying cargo for human consumption in space.”
Culbertson is a former NASA astronaut too.
If the launching takes place on time and other things goes well, the new spacecraft would arrive at the ISS by early September 22. Astronauts there will capture the ship with the help of a robotic arm and attach it to a docking port.
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