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#20
by
Lurker Steve
on 05 Jun, 2012 14:33
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Surrounded by 100s of Orbital workers chanting his name! 
Not to mention the hordes of rapturous acolytes here on NSF...
Noel
And then he'd have to ban alcohol from Dulles.
Or maybe it already is.
Since Cygnus has that "beer keg" look, perhaps we should ask Antonio which craft beer we should be drinking when the first mission finally launches and the Cygnus is berthed to the ISS.
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#21
by
Jorge
on 05 Jun, 2012 16:13
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Great article. Will be interesting to see how Orbital/Tridar deals with the laser reflector on the JEM that Dragon reacted to, probably wont be too hard as SpaceX did it on the fly (literally)
I think that Cygnus will actually use the reflector on the JEM, since it uses the JAXA PROX system for ISS rendezvous. I'll check...
Great article, BTW!
PROX is an RF-based system; it doesn't use the reflectors. HTV's RVS lidar used the reflectors, but Cygnus isn't using that - they're using TriDAR.
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#22
by
Lee Jay
on 05 Jun, 2012 16:16
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#23
by
Lurker Steve
on 05 Jun, 2012 17:02
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#24
by
woods170
on 05 Jun, 2012 17:20
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I wish Orbital would make a bigger about the Star bus not ONLY being able to carry modified MPLMs. Seems like one of the most fun legos you could ever ask for to do modifications to the ISS, or any spacecraft with berthing ability.
If anything, the cargo module on Cygnus can not be classified as a modified MPLM. Not even close. It it constructed using the same basic techniques as the MPLMs, but the design is all-new and very different from the MPLMs.
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#25
by
Chandonn
on 05 Jun, 2012 17:52
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Since Cygnus has that "beer keg" look, perhaps we should ask Antonio which craft beer we should be drinking when the first mission finally launches and the Cygnus is berthed to the ISS.
Nah, beer and Kool-Aid don't mix very well...
On topic: I'm looking for more "packaged" (i.e. pdf) info on this COTS flight. Nothing as elaborate as a "very very early" Press Kit. But something a bit more along those lines. (I have some older brochure material, but I'm looking for something more COTS-y).
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#26
by
Gary NASA
on 05 Jun, 2012 18:13
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On topic: I'm looking for more "packaged" (i.e. pdf) info on this COTS flight. Nothing as elaborate as a "very very early" Press Kit. But something a bit more along those lines. (I have some older brochure material, but I'm looking for something more COTS-y).
This article isn't based on press kits, it's based on presentations acquired by L2. So if you have L2, click here for the Cygnus L2 menu.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=tags&tags=Cygnus
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#27
by
strangequark
on 05 Jun, 2012 20:53
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Since Cygnus has that "beer keg" look, perhaps we should ask Antonio which craft beer we should be drinking when the first mission finally launches and the Cygnus is berthed to the ISS.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15457.msg665742#msg665742
And the Fish Finder found me a local source for Dog Fish. I'm ready for the Cygnus party.
I strongly recommend their Midas Touch.
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#28
by
mdmcgrory
on 06 Jun, 2012 07:14
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Super informative article Chris, great job! Crossing my fingers and hoping to watch in person the MARS spaceport in VA launch missions early and often to the ISS into 2028 and beyond! Go Cygnus!
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#29
by
Chris Bergin
on 06 Jun, 2012 14:37
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Super informative article Chris, great job! Crossing my fingers and hoping to watch in person the MARS spaceport in VA launch missions early and often to the ISS into 2028 and beyond! Go Cygnus!
Thanks!
And there's a point about viewing the launch. There should be a lot of interest in this, likely breaking Wallops records.
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#30
by
happyflower
on 06 Jun, 2012 19:21
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So the article states that Cyguns will be at the ISS for 30 days. Is that more or less than the Progress craft? Is that enough time to fill it with trash? What if there is not enough trash to fill the Cygnus but its time at the ISS is over, will it leave unfilled?
Can Cygnus (or Dragon; dont mean to go off topic) be able to carry fuel to the ISS, or do an orbital burn to adjust ISS orbit? Things that Progress can do.
Thanks.
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#31
by
rklaehn
on 06 Jun, 2012 19:31
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Can Cygnus (or Dragon; dont mean to go off topic) be able to carry fuel to the ISS, or do an orbital burn to adjust ISS orbit? Things that Progress can do.
I am pretty sure that neither cygnus nor dragon can transfer fuel to the station. Fuel transfer is done to the russian segment, and cygnus and dragon are being berthed to the american segment.
Also, they are not being berthed in the right place to change the orbit of the station. They are being berthed on the side of a module that is at the end of the station, so the thrust of the main thrusters of cygnus would not go through the center of gravity of the station.
You could probably move the PMA2 somewhere else to free a berthing port that is on the longitudal axis of the station.
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#32
by
Space Pete
on 06 Jun, 2012 21:04
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So the article states that Cyguns will be at the ISS for 30 days. Is that more or less than the Progress craft? Is that enough time to fill it with trash? What if there is not enough trash to fill the Cygnus but its time at the ISS is over, will it leave unfilled?
Can Cygnus (or Dragon; dont mean to go off topic) be able to carry fuel to the ISS, or do an orbital burn to adjust ISS orbit? Things that Progress can do.
Thanks.
30 days is much less than typical Progress stays - which can last as long as six months. 30 days should be enough time to load Cygnus with trash - NASA will make sure the crew's schedule allows for completion of trash loading.
Cygnus cannot transfer fuel to ISS since that can only be done with the Russian docking system, while Cygnus uses the CBM. Also, Cygnus cannot reboost ISS since it berths to ISS off-axis and far away from its center of mass - so if Cygnus fired its engines while attached to ISS, it would cause ISS to enter a spin.
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#33
by
Prober
on 13 Jun, 2012 15:03
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So the article states that Cyguns will be at the ISS for 30 days. Is that more or less than the Progress craft? Is that enough time to fill it with trash? What if there is not enough trash to fill the Cygnus but its time at the ISS is over, will it leave unfilled?
Can Cygnus (or Dragon; dont mean to go off topic) be able to carry fuel to the ISS, or do an orbital burn to adjust ISS orbit? Things that Progress can do.
Thanks.
so if Cygnus fired its engines while attached to ISS, it would cause ISS to enter a spin.
Ohhh artificial gravity test.
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#34
by
Ronsmytheiii
on 14 Jun, 2012 11:30
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From Aviation week in regards to the VASMIR launch:
The notional launch target has slipped a year and remains vulnerable to NASA budgeting and the future of the station’s status as a national laboratory. While Ad Astra has not committed to a launch provider, Orbital Sciences Corp. appears to provide the best match.
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_06_06_2012_p0-465042.xml&p=2VASMIR will be an external cargo, does this mean that one launch of Cygnus is confirmed to be the external cargo only version?
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#35
by
Jason1701
on 14 Jun, 2012 14:19
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No, I think Aviation Week is wrong (as so often) and SpaceX will notionally fly VASIMR.
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#36
by
kevin-rf
on 14 Jun, 2012 14:25
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Hmm... Tim Glover (VP for Development) from Ad Astra Rocket Company corrected some of the article in the comments.
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#37
by
mdmcgrory
on 17 Jun, 2012 13:49
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Is there some reason that the cargo ships that dock to the USOS part of the station don't stick around that long. I mean the crew can spend months of time filling up Progress and ATV's with trash, but the Dragon was only docked for a week (granted it was a test flight), Cygnus is going for only a month, and the H-2 which is operational did more than a month, but the devastating earthquake in Japan had something to do with that.It seems like it's a month long spacecraft.
Are the CBM mounted cargo ships deemed too delicate to be be a 4-6 month storage and waste modules attached to the main complex because of MMOD or are they not getting enough power, or is their re-entry fuel suspect over time. Because I would think, if they are human rated to be open to the ISS for a couple weeks, they should be able to be used as storage modules until undocking and re-entry like the Progress and ATV? Is there some kind of beta angle cutoff problem I'm missing? Might be a stupid question. Just seems like perfectly good ships that could add some much needed volume at times.
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#38
by
Robotbeat
on 17 Jun, 2012 22:00
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Well, the port will be very busy, with Cygnus, Dragon, and HTV... There will be a new Vv every couple months or even less.
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#39
by
woods170
on 15 Nov, 2012 06:57
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Coming back to this thread...
Looks like the debut mission of Cygnus to ISS will be delayed as a result of the recent HTV abort.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/spacex-and-nasa-still-determining-reasons-for-falcon-9-engine-failure\
As the briefing continued it became clear that a delay might be needed in any case because of an unresolved problem that arose when Japan's HTV cargo spacecraft was released from the ISS. The HTV automatically aborted the release when it detected an "off-nominal trajectory" resulting from friction between the grapple fixture and Canadarm2 that caused Canadarm2 to pull HTV as it was trying to back away. Suffredini said they are still investigating what happened. SpaceX uses a different configuration, so it is not issue for the next Dragon flight, he said, but Cygnus uses the same configuration as HTV and "we need to sort it out before Cygnus flies."
