Launch Date Set For First Orbital COTS Demo

ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA has set Dec. 14 as the target launch date for Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) cargo demonstration mission. Meanwhile, the company says it continues to make progress with NASA toward attaining safety clearance for the mission, in which its Cygnus spacecraft will dock with the International Space Station (ISS).

The flight is scheduled to include delivery of a token cargo load using Orbital’s first Cygnus visiting vehicle, a service module combined with a pressurized cargo module (PCM). It is expected to be preceded by a Taurus II “risk-reduction” mission, which is still awaiting funding approval from Congress.

The first cargo module is expected to reach Orbital’s manufacturing facilities in Dulles, Va., from Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, “around April,” according to Carl Walz, Orbital’s vice president of human spaceflight operations.

The first service module structure — supplied from AASC of Stockton, Calif. — which will provide power and propulsion for the PCM, is at Orbital’s Dulles site undergoing fit-out.

On the road to clearance for the COTS mission, Orbital has passed “17 of 21 milestones to date,” says Walz, who adds that the company recently completed the first part of Phase 3 of NASA’s rigorous safety review process for docking with the ISS.

Speaking at the American Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics aerospace science meeting here, Walz says the procedure will entail flying up to match the station’s orbit before using GPS satellites to “align the system and fly automatically up the R-bar,” a standard approach method based on using the radius vector to the Earth’s center. “Once we’re within 10 meters, we will go to ‘free drift’ mode and allow the ISS crew to grapple us,” he adds.

Alenia has completed welding the first three PCMs and is beginning assembly work on a fourth. Preparations also have included loading simulated cargo into a PCM, Walz says. Two versions are planned — an initial module able to deliver 2,000 kg. (4,400 lb.) and a follow-on “enhanced PCM” with a capacity for 2,700 kg.

Preparations for the demonstration launch of the Taurus II from Orbital’s launch complex at Wallops Island, Va., also are well underway, Walz says. The liquid-fueled Taurus II first stage is being fitted out in the H-100 cargo-processing facility on the adjacent mainland. All follow-on launch vehicles will be completed in the horizontal integration facility, which is due to open officially on Jan. 20, with the H-100 building functioning solely for payload processing in the future, he adds.

Tests of the Aerojet AJ26-62 engine that will power the first stage also continue at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where engineers are preparing for a third hot-fire test of the engine following earlier runs in November and December. “Every month we’ll be bringing another AJ26 through Stennis,” Walz says.