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Cygnus NG-13

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NG-13
Canadarm2 grapples the S.S. Robert H. Lawrence
NamesCRS NG-13
CRS OA-13 (2016–2018)
Mission typeISS resupply
OperatorNorthrop Grumman
COSPAR ID2020-011A Edit this at Wikidata
SATCAT no.45175Edit this on Wikidata
Mission duration103 days, 23 hours, 7 minutes
Spacecraft properties
SpacecraftS.S. Robert H. Lawrence
Spacecraft typeEnhanced Cygnus
Manufacturer
Payload mass3,377 kilograms (7,445 lb)
Start of mission
Launch date15 February 2020, 20:21:01 (15 February 2020, 20:21:01) UTC (3:21:01 pm EST)
RocketAntares 230+
Launch siteMARS, Pad 0A
End of mission
DisposalDeorbited
Decay date29 May 2020, 19:29 (29 May 2020, 19:29) UTC
Orbital parameters
Reference systemGeocentric orbit
RegimeLow Earth orbit
Inclination51.66°
Berthing at ISS
Berthing portUnity nadir[1]
RMS capture18 February 2020, 09:05 UTC
Berthing date18 February 2020, 11:16 UTC
Unberthing date11 May 2020, 13:00 UTC[2]
RMS release11 May 2020, 16:09 UTC[3]
Time berthed83 days, 1 hour, 44 minutes

NASA insignia
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NG-13, previously known as OA-13, was the fourteenth flight of the Northrop Grumman robotic resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its thirteenth flight to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-1) contract with NASA.[4][5] The mission launched on 15 February 2020 at 20:21:01 UTC after nearly a week of delays.[6] This is the second launch of Cygnus under the CRS-2 contract.[7]

Orbital ATK and NASA jointly developed a new space transportation system to provide commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station (ISS). Under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, then Orbital Sciences designed and built Antares, a medium-class launch vehicle, with Ukrainian specialists providing first stage structure.[8]

Cygnus, an advanced maneuvered spacecraft, mates a Pressurized Cargo Module, provided by Orbital's industrial partner Thales Alenia Space, with their GEOStar satellite bus.[9] Northrop Grumman purchased Orbital in June 2018; its ATK division was renamed Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems.[10]

History

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Cygnus NG-13 is the second Cygnus mission under Commercial Resupply Services-2.

Production and integration of Cygnus spacecraft are performed in Dulles, Virginia. The Cygnus service module is mated with the pressurized cargo module at the launch site, and mission operations are conducted from control centers in Dulles, Virginia and Houston, Texas.[9]

The original launch attempt on 9 February 2020 was scheduled to launch at 22:39:30 UTC before being pushed to the end of its five-minute window at 22:44:29 UTC, only to end up being scrubbed due to a technical issue with a regulator at the launch pad with three minutes left in the countdown.[11] The second launch attempt on 14 February 2020 at 20:43:34 UTC was scrubbed due to strong upper winds with less than ninety minutes left in the countdown. Cygnus NG-13 was launched successfully on 15 February 2020 at 20:21:01 UTC.

Launch and early operations

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After Northrop Grumman purchased Orbital ATK in June 2018, the mission was changed from OA-13 to NG-13. The Antares rocket was built and processed in the Horizontal Integration Facility over the course of six months. The rocket was rolled out to MARS Pad 0A where it was originally planned to launch 9 February 2020 but was scrubbed and delayed due to inclement weather and an issue with a regulator at the launch pad. The mission launched successfully on the 15 February 2020 at 20:21:01 UTC with no delay and no apparent problems. The Cygnus spacecraft arrived at the space station on 18 February 2020 at 09:05 UTC. Expedition 62 astronaut Andrew Morgan grappled the spacecraft using the station's robotic arm. After Cygnus capture, ground controllers commanded the station's arm to rotate and install Cygnus on the Earth-facing port of the station's Unity module at 11:16 UTC. The Cygnus spacecraft remained at the space station until 11 May 2020. The Saffire-IV experiment was conducted within Cygnus after it departs the station, and prior to deorbit, when it disposed of several tons of trash during reentry into Earth's atmosphere, over the Pacific Ocean, on 29 May 2020.[1]

Launch attempt summary

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Note: Times are local to the launch site (Eastern Daylight Time).

Attempt Planned Result Turnaround Reason Decision point Weather go (%) Notes
1 9 Feb 2020, 5:44:29 pm Scrubbed — Technical 9 Feb 2020, 5:41 pm 100 Scrubbed due to off-nominal data from ground support.
2 13 Feb 2020, 4:06:03 pm Scrubbed 3 days 22 hours 22 minutes Weather 11 Feb 2020, 11:50 am 45 Concerns over bad weather.
3 14 Feb 2020, 3:43:34 pm Scrubbed 0 days 23 hours 38 minutes Weather 14 Feb 2020, 2:07 pm 90 Concerns over high speed upper-level winds.
4 15 Feb 2020, 3:21:01 pm Success 0 days 23 hours 37 minutes 85

Spacecraft

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Main article: Cygnus (spacecraft)
Antares 230+ launches the Cygnus NG-13 mission.

This is the tenth flight of the Enhanced-sized Cygnus PCM.[12] This Cygnus spacecraft is named to honor Robert H. Lawrence.[13]

Manifest

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The Cygnus spacecraft was loaded with 3,377 kilograms (7,445 lb) of pressurized cargo with packaging, broken down as follows:[14]

  • Vehicle hardware: 1,588 kg (3,501 lb)
  • Science investigations: 966 kg (2,129 lb)
  • Crew supplies: 712 kg (1,570 lb)
  • Spacewalk equipment: 81 kg (179 lb)
  • Computer resources: 30 kg (66 lb)

Hardware

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NASA provided the following breakdown of the cargo's hardware for ISS:[14]

  • Columbus Ka-band Terminal (COLKa) Assembly: module enhancement hardware to upgrade the communications capability in Columbus science module
  • Major Constituents Analyzer (MCA) Mass Spectrometer: critical spare to support laboratories and connecting module operations of the MCAs to detect atmospheric constituents on board the space station
  • External High Definition Camera (EHDC) Assembly: major camera assembly spare that will replace a failed camera on-orbit during a spring 2020 EVA
  • Water Stowage System (WSS) Resupply Tanks (RST): nine water tanks to support crew and hardware requirements during the 2020 timeframe
  • Nitrogen/Oxygen Recharge System (NORS) Tanks: two recharge tanks to replenish on-orbit oxygen to be utilized in upcoming spacewalks, and one air tank to support the Commercial Crew Vehicle (CCV) Emergency Breathing Air Assembly (CEBAA) hardware launching in 2020
  • POLAR Flight Assembly: cold stowage capability to support payload transportation to the ISS

Research

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The new experiments arriving at the orbiting laboratory will challenge and inspire future scientists and explorers, and provide valuable insight for researchers. Experiments will test new facilities for microscopic viewing and cell culturing, and particle identification will seek to better understand how fire spreads in microgravity and will study how bacteriophages behave in space. The Saffire-IV experiment will occur after Cygnus leaves the ISS.[14]

  • Mobile SpaceLab, a tissue and cell culturing facility that offers investigators a quick-turnaround platform to perform sophisticated microgravity biology experiments. This will be mounted in a designated EXPRESS rack on ISS [15]
  • Mochii, initial demonstration of a new miniature scanning electron microscope (SEM) with spectroscopy
  • Spacecraft Fire Experiment-IV (Saffire-IV), fourth in a series of experiments on fire and combustibles [15]
  • OsteoOmics examines osteoblast cells at a molecular level to better understand bone loss [15]
  • Phage Evolution studies the effects of microgravity and radiation exposure on bacteriophages and their hosts

Cubesats

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Cubesats planned for release: Red-Eye 2, DeMI, TechEdSat 10.[16] A CubeSat payload for the communications provider Lynk (2020-011D) was ejected from the Slingshot deployer on Cygnus on 13 May 2020 at 23:25 UTC. Another payload (another Lynk, or perhaps WIDAR) remained attached to Cygnus and deployed a communications antenna. The payloads were launched aboard SpaceX CRS-20 and installed on the Cygnus hatch by the ISS crew.[2] The Cygnus host a NASA combustion experiment inside its pressurized cabin before Northrop Grumman controllers command the spacecraft to a destructive re-entry over the South Pacific Ocean on 29 May 2020.[3]

Disposal

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Cygnus NG-13 is another test of the Cygnus External Payload Carrier. Europe's HDEV experiment which has provided outstanding views of the Earth would return home on Cygnus NG-13.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Becker, Joachim (9 March 2020). "ISS Expedition 62". SpaceFacts (German).
  2. ^ a b McDowell, Jonathan C. (26 May 2020). "Space Report No. 778". Jonathan's Space Report.
  3. ^ a b Clark, Stephen (11 May 2020). "Cygnus departs station, beginning extended experimental mission". Spaceflight Now.
  4. ^ "Worldwide launch schedule". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  5. ^ "International Space Station Flight Schedule". Students for the Exploration and Development of Space. 15 May 2013.
  6. ^ Clark, Stephen (15 February 2020). "Antares rocket lifts off from Virginia on space station cargo mission". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  7. ^ Gebhardt, Chris (1 June 2018). "Orbital ATK looks ahead to CRS-2 Cygnus flights, Antares on the commercial market". NASASpaceflight.com. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  8. ^ "U.S.-Ukraine Produced Rocket Lifts Off, Takes Supplies To International Space Station". Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. 17 February 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  9. ^ a b "Cygnus Fact Sheet" (PDF). Northrop Grumman. 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  10. ^ Erwin, Sandra (5 June 2018). "Acquisition of Orbital ATK approved, company renamed Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems". SpaceNews. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
  11. ^ Clark, Stephen (10 February 2020). "Antares launch scrubbed due to faulty ground support equipment". Spaceflight Now.
  12. ^ Leone, Dan (17 August 2015). "NASA Orders Two More ISS Cargo Missions From Orbital ATK". spacenews.com. SpaceNews. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  13. ^ Pearlman, Robert Z. (20 January 2020). "Northrop Grumman names Cygnus spacecraft for first African American astronaut". collectSPACE. Retrieved 23 January 2020.
  14. ^ a b c "Overview CRS-13 (NG-13) Mission" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved 14 February 2020. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  15. ^ a b c Gaskill, Melissa (29 January 2020). "New Research Launching to Station Aboard Northrop Grumman's 13th Resupply Mission". NASA. Archived from the original on 8 February 2020. Retrieved 30 January 2020. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  16. ^ "Cygnus-PCM (enhanced)". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
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