Cygnus CRS-5 (OA-5,SS Alan Poindexter)

Spacecraft nº:

US spacecraft nº:

Spacecraft data: Prime manufacturer  Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) Platform   Operator  NASA Mass at launch  2345 kg Cargo Mass   kg Basic shape   Dimension (m)   Equipment  2 deployable solar arrays Solar array   Stabilization   Propulsion  IHI BT-4 DC power

Cygnus-crs5 patch

Description:

Mission details:

• On Oct 17, 2016 an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship, the SS Alan Poindexter, was launched on mission OA-5. The launch was the first flight of the Antares 230 rocket, featuring a first stage with two Energomash RD-181 engines replacing the Kuznetsov/Aerojet AJ-26 engines used on earlier Antares missions (which were implicated in the Oct 2014 Antares 130 failure), and a second stage with the Castor 30XL solid motor. The Castor 30XL was on the previous Antares launch but didn't get a chance to fire because of the first stage failure, so this was its first real test. In the event the rocket performed above specification and the mission reached a higher-than-planned 209 x 351 km orbit.
• OA-5 reached the ISS on Oct 23; it was grappled by the SSRMS at 1128 UTC and berthed to the nadir port of the Unity module at 1453 UTC.
  
  

  OA-5 grappled by the SSRMS. Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.

  
  
• Cygnus OA-5 carries 2345 kg of pressurized cargo, and the external Nanoracks deployer with four Spire Global Lemur-2 cubesats.
• One month after launching, the Cygnus cargo vehicle SS Alan Poindexter (OA-5) was unberthed from the Unity module at about 11:25 UTC Nov 21, and released into space at 13:22 UTC.
  Five hours after departing the station, the Saffire-II experiment will intentionally ignite a fire inside a module aboard the uncrewed spacecraft. The second in a series of three, the experiment allows researchers to study a realistic fire on an exploration spacecraft. Instruments on the Cygnus will measure flame growth, oxygen use and more. Results could determine microgravity flammability limits for several spacecraft materials, validate NASA′s material selection criteria, and help scientists understand how microgravity and limited oxygen affect flame size. The investigation is important for the safety of current and future space missions.
  It raised its orbit on Nov 25 to 495 x 504 km and released two pairs of Spire Global cubesats in the Lemur-2 series from an external deployer on November 25, 2016 sending them to join a remote sensing satellite constellation that provides global ship tracking and weather monitoring. The spacecraft will remain in orbit until November 27, 2016 when its engines will fire twice, pushing it into Earth′s atmosphere, where it will burn up over the Pacific Ocean.
• Cygnus was deorbited on Nov 27, reentering over the S Pacific at 23:36 UTC.

External links:

• Cygnus fact sheet

Astrophilately covers:

Launch cancel Wallops Island. Credit: #421

Undocking cancel Houston. Credit: #421