NASA lines up four additional CRS missions for Dragon and Cygnus

[ZachS09]

For Orbital ATK's additional Cygnus resupply flight, Orb-8E, does the "E" in the mission name mean that Cygnus could stay at the ISS for more than one month?

[Coastal Ron]

I know it's a "contract extension" but NASA bought four whole space missions, it's sort of a big deal.

From our perspective, yes, but we get excited about stuff like this.

The info has to get out one way or another, it would be so much more efficient for them to type up a quick press release once the contracts are signed.

Maybe because the parties involved (or at least NASA) don't want to draw a lot of attention to this for some reason?

Orbital ATK is a public company, so it would makes sense that they would talk about it.  SpaceX is privately held, and would only talk about it if it furthered their needs.  If not a lot is being made about this I suspect it's because NASA didn't want to make a lot about this.  Why, I don't know.  But that's how I interpret things...

[gongora]

It would be interesting to see what the companies are really getting paid for these missions.  The guaranteed minimum values are for certain amounts of up/down mass which could be exceeded, and the SpaceX contract mentions potentially different pricing depending on if mission is mass or volume limited.  Will be really interesting to see the upmass on CRS-6 too with an empty trunk.

[arachnitect]

For Orbital ATK's additional Cygnus resupply flight, Orb-8E, does the "E" in the mission name mean that Cygnus could stay at the ISS for more than one month?

Originally there were going to be 8 delivery missions from Orbital. After the failure, Orbital cancelled a mission (they would fly more cargo on each mission). Now they've been awarded an additional mission, so they're back to 8 missions.

The "e" is to differentiate the newly awarded mission from previously planned and cancelled Orb-8.

[Mariusuiram]

For Orbital ATK's additional Cygnus resupply flight, Orb-8E, does the "E" in the mission name mean that Cygnus could stay at the ISS for more than one month?

Originally there were going to be 8 delivery missions from Orbital. After the failure, Orbital cancelled a mission (they would fly more cargo on each mission). Now they've been awarded an additional mission, so they're back to 8 missions.

The "e" is to differentiate the newly awarded mission from previously planned and cancelled Orb-8.

I thought the E referred to the Extended Cygnus, since the new rocket will fly an extended vessel to deliver more payload per launch. This one would also deliver more than originally planned.

[Sesquipedalian]

I thought the E referred to the Extended Cygnus, since the new rocket will fly an extended vessel to deliver more payload per launch. This one would also deliver more than originally planned.

No, or every other mission from Orb-4 onward would also have the E suffix.

There is precedent for missions to be given a suffix if they are replanned but reuse a previous numeric designation.  Post-Challenger, several missions were given the R suffix (for "reflight" or "replanned") such as STS-26R to distinguish them from the earlier planned missions which had used the same numbers.

[ZachS09]

I thought the E referred to the Extended Cygnus, since the new rocket will fly an extended vessel to deliver more payload per launch. This one would also deliver more than originally planned.

No, or every other mission from Orb-4 onward would also have the E suffix.

There is precedent for missions to be given a suffix if they are replanned but reuse a previous numeric designation.  Post-Challenger, several missions were given the R suffix (for "reflight" or "replanned") such as STS-26R to distinguish them from the earlier planned missions which had used the same numbers.

Thanks; I see the similarities between the post-Challenger missions and the Cygnus manifest.