SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket modified for Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo launch on Jan. 3027-01-2024"It's taken a lot of modifications on our part to get this hardware ready to go fly."[...]During a pre-flight teleconference on Friday (Jan. 26), William Gerstenmaier, vice president of Build and Flight Reliability at SpaceX, said that the Falcon 9's payload fairing, the shell that surrounds and protects a spacecraft during ascent while atop a rocket, had to be modified to add a hatch measuring 5 feet by 4 feet (1.5m by 1.2m) to the Falcon 9's payload fairing. The hatch gives ground crews the ability to add extra "late-load" cargo before launch including special treats like ice cream for the astronauts aboard the space station, Gerstenmaier said.Gerstenmaier added that the complication of addition of the hatch contributed to the decision to delay the launch one day to Jan. 30. That's because the area inside that hatch must be environmentally controlled, since any contamination on Cygnus's docking hardware could affect how well it berths at the ISS."So that's a pretty intense activity," Gerstenmaier said. "This will be the first time we've done that. It's taken a lot of modifications on our part to get this hardware ready to go fly." [...]
271343Z JAN 24NAVAREA IV 84/24(11,26).WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC.FLORIDA.1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS, ROCKET LAUNCHING 301701Z TO 301740Z JAN, ALTERNATE 311639Z TO 311718Z JAN, 011613Z TO 011652Z, 021551Z TO 021630Z, 031528Z TO 031607Z, 041505Z TO 041544Z FEB. IN AREAS BOUND BY: A. 28-38.44N 080-37.29W, 28-51.00N 080-17.00W, 28-44.00N 080-07.00W, 28-38.00N 080-12.00W, 28-23.00N 080-29.00W, 28-26.45N 080-33.31W. B. 30-59.00N 077-46.00W, 31-23.00N 077-32.00W, 31-28.00N 077-34.00W, 31-36.00N 077-29.00W, 31-43.00N 077-16.00W, 31-44.00N 077-09.00W, 31-44.00N 077-01.00W, 31-40.00N 076-46.00W, 31-33.00N 076-40.00W, 31-25.00N 076-40.00W, 31-20.00N 076-44.00W, 31-15.00N 076-55.00W, 31-13.00N 077-04.00W, 30-57.00N 077-41.00W.2. CANCEL NAVAREA IV 76/24.3. CANCEL THIS MSG 041644Z FEB 24.
To accommodate the requirement for late load capability for Cygnus SpaceX had to modify the fairing to add a door and also add essentially a clean room to avoid introducing contamination in the fairing area.So a customer needed a new capability and SpaceX just added it, uh...
We add new capabilities for our customers much more often than people realize. In general, we will do whatever it takes to get the best result for our customers.
SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, January 30 for Falcon 9’s launch of Northrop Grumman’s 20th Commercial Resupply Services mission (NG-20) to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The instantaneous launch window is at 12:07 p.m. ET, with a backup launch opportunity available on Thursday, February 1 at 11:18 a.m. ET.A live webcast of this mission will begin on X @SpaceX about 15 minutes prior to liftoff. Watch live.This is the tenth flight of the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-5, GPS III Space Vehicle 06, Inmarsat I6-F2, CRS-28, Intelsat G-37, and four Starlink missions. Following stage separation, Falcon 9 will land at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1).
Confirmation of <snip> booster = B1077.10.
Gav Cornwell@SpaceOffshoreSpaceX support ship Doug has wrapped up work at the shipyard in Charleston and with no time to waste, looks to be heading straight to the fairing recovery site for the upcoming NG-20 mission. Booster will RTLS.
Quote from: Ken the Bin on 01/27/2024 11:53 pmConfirmation of <snip> booster = B1077.10.B1072.1 has been unavailable for 10 months due to being reserved for this mission, and then in the end they casually swap it out for a general-purpose booster and B1072.1 gets assigned as a side-booster for GOES-U in AprilWas there a change? Or was that information just incorrect all along? (TBF it never had a proper source)[EDIT: I note B1072.1's new flight is using 3x non-flight-proven booster/core stages. So that might be deliberate and a reason to steal NG-20's reserved shiny booster]
Cygnus NG-20 is set to launch to the ISS atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 on Tuesday.Here's the full mission overview, by Justin Davenport (@Bubbinski).
SpaceX is preparing to launch Northrup Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft this afternoon. The instantaneous launch window to the International Space Station is at 12:07pm EST. While this is the 21st Cygnus mission to date, this will be its first flight aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. 📸 me for @considercosmos
Good morning from the grounds of Space Launch Complex 40 where the teams at SpaceX and Northrop Grumman are preparing to launch the Cygnus spacecraft aboard Falcon 9 for the first time. Liftoff is currently slated for 12:07pm local time. 📸 - @NASASpaceflight 👓 - nasaspaceflight.com/2024/01/crs-ng…#SpaceX #Falcon9 #NG20
Sunrise at pad 40 in Florida. Falcon 9 is targeted to launch @NorthropGrumman’s NG-20 mission at 12:07 p.m. ET today → spacex.com/launches
