Cygnus CRS-4 (OA 4,SS Deke Slayton II)

Spacecraft nº:

US spacecraft nº:

Berthed date - time  09 Dec 2015 - 14:26 UT Target spacecraft/port  ISS/Unity Docking orbit:    - Perigee / Apogee   km    - Inclination  °    - Period   min Unberthed date - time  19 Feb 2016 released by the robot arm at 12:27 UT Deorbit burn date - time   Destroyed date - time  20 Feb 2016 - 16:00 UT Flight Duration (dd:hh:min)  76 days Nbr orbits   Spacecraft data: Prime manufacturer  Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) Platform   Operator  NASA Mass at launch  7492 kg Cargo Mass   kg Basic shape   Dimension (m)   Equipment  2 deployable solar arrays Solar array   Stabilization   Propulsion  IHI BT-4 DC power

The OA-4 Cygnus spacecraft “Deke Slayton II” in the clean room at KSC. Photo Credit: Alan Walters / AmericaSpace

Description:

• CYGNUS CRS ORB-2, also known as Orbital Sciences CRS Flight 2, is the fourth flight of the Orbital Sciences' unmanned resupply spacecraft Cygnus, its fourth flight to the International Space Station, and the five launch of the company's Antares launch vehicle.

Mission details:

• United Launch Alliance launched Atlas V flight AV-061 on Dec 6, 2015 carrying the Cygnus OA-4 cargo ship mission. Following the Antares failure last year, Cygnus payloads were temporarily moved to Atlas. The OA-4 Cygnus, called 'SS Deke Slayton II', is the first Cygnus with the enhanced (stretched) EPCM pressurized cargo module, and the first with a service module carrying the circular UltraFlex solar arrays originally designed for NASA's Orion. This was the first time an Atlas launched a payload towards the ISS.
• The AV-061 Centaur reached a 234 x 237 km orbit at 2203 UTC, released Cygnus 3 min later, and performed a 10s deorbit burn at 2232 UTC for disposal of the Centaur in the ocean south of Australia at about 132E 49S.
• The Deke Slayton II reached the ISS on Dec 9, 2015 with SSRMS grapple at 1119 UTC and berthing at the nadir port on Unity at 1426 UTC. Aboart the Cygnus is the small NovaWurks SIMPL satellite, 12 Flock 2e cubesats from Planet Labs, and the CADRE, STMSat-1, MinXSS-1, Nodes 1 and Nodes 2 cubesats.
  Mass of ISS after the OA-4 arrival is 418 metric tons.
• The Canadarm-2 unberthed the Cygnus OA-4 cargo ship, SS Deke Slayton II, from the Unity node on Feb 19, 2016 at 1040 UTC and released it into orbit at about 1227 UTC. The Cygnus was deorbited over the S Pacific at about 1600 UTC Feb 20.

External links:

• Cygnus fact sheet

Astrophilately covers:

Launch, cancel CC. Credit: #401

Launch cancel KSC. Credit: #411