I wonder if this is going to take advantage of ULA's new RapidLaunch service in some way?
Great to see ULA getting some missions in a market that they were originally barred from competing in. Space launch is a small community. Always good to see companies work together to get the job done during tough times, especially with recent failures. With OA7, I wonder how much payload mass ULA will have taken to the ISS compared to Falcon 9 and Antares.
Quote from: orulz on 11/04/2016 06:48 pmI wonder if this is going to take advantage of ULA's new RapidLaunch service in some way?It did
Quote from: Jim on 11/05/2016 10:10 amQuote from: orulz on 11/04/2016 06:48 pmI wonder if this is going to take advantage of ULA's new RapidLaunch service in some way?It didMight be a bit off topic, but Can ULA support another RapidLaunch (say the Inmarsat launch) in 2017?
Quote from: Ronsmytheiii on 11/06/2016 09:22 pmQuote from: Jim on 11/05/2016 10:10 amQuote from: orulz on 11/04/2016 06:48 pmI wonder if this is going to take advantage of ULA's new RapidLaunch service in some way?It didMight be a bit off topic, but Can ULA support another RapidLaunch (say the Inmarsat launch) in 2017?possibly as ULA is ramping up production to make more launchers available which means price will start to drop a bit.
Rapid launch slots are about a quarter apart. More than one offered in 2017
The company has not, as of now, finalized any arrangements, but I think I can share our viewpoint on this situation. As we're always doing, Orbital ATK has discussed with NASA how we can best contribute to beating the space agency's needs for space station cargo, particularly over the next 12 to 18 months while other cargo delivery options are in flux.As part of this, we are now preparing to conduct four cargo missions over a 12-month period from early next year through early 2018 to provide NASA with maximum operational flexibility in view of the situation with the other cargo suppliers. But to ensure that we can achieve a higher-than-planned flight rate and to maximize cargo capacity on each mission, we may well decide to supplement the three Antares rockets that are currently in production with one Atlas launch during this time.We don't want to overcommit to the flight rate that we can achieve over the next 12 to 15 months. And so we think for that reason it may well be prudent to supplement the planned Antares launches with a possible Atlas launch. And we'll have more to communicate on this in the near future.
Newton_V, will this launch use AV-070?
Launch date is the 9th of March