N-G Antares: Cygnus NG-12 (ISS resupply)

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NASA TV: https://www.nasa.gov/live

 

WASHINGTON (NASA PR)  NASA commercial cargo provider Northrop Grumman is scheduled to launch its next resupply mission to the International Space Station at 9:59 a.m. EDT Saturday, Nov. 2. NASAs prelaunch coverage will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website beginning Friday, Nov. 1. 

Loaded with around 8,200 pounds of research, crew supplies, and hardware, Northrop Grumman's 12th commercial resupply mission for the space station will launch on the companys Cygnus cargo spacecraft on an Antares rocket from Virginia Spaces Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft, dubbed the SS Alan Bean, is named after the late Apollo and Skylab astronaut who died on May 26, 2018, at the age of 86.

 

This Cygnus will launch 50 years to the month after Bean, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon flew to the Moon on NASA's Apollo 12 mission, during which Bean became the fourth human to walk on the lunar surface. Bean was the lunar module pilot aboard Intrepid with mission commander Conrad when they landed on Moon at the Ocean of Storms on Nov. 19, 1969.

 

With a Nov. 2 launch, the Cygnus spacecraft will arrive at the space station Monday, Nov. 4 at about 5:45 a.m., Expedition 61 NASA astronaut Jessica Meir will grapple the spacecraft using the stations robotic arm. She will be backed up by NASA astronaut Christina Koch. After Cygnus capture, ground controllers will command the stations arm to rotate and install Cygnus on the bottom of the station's Unity module.

Complete NASA TV coverage of activities is as follows:

 

Friday, Nov. 1

 

11:30 a.m.  Whats on Board science briefing

 

Pete Hasbrook, manager of International Space Station Program Science Office at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston

 

Liz Warren, associate program scientist with the U.S. National Lab

 

Sam Ting, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-2) principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and Ken Bollweg, AMS project manager at Johnson

 

Kathleen Coderre, principal investigator for AstroRad Vest at Lockheed Martin Space, Littleton, Colorado, and Oren Milstein, co-founder and chief scientific officer for StemRad

 

Alessandro Grattoni, chairman of the Department of NanoMedicine at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, and Maurizio Geggiani, chief technology officer at Automobili Lamborghini, for the CraigX Flight Test Platform

 

Mary Murphy, senior internal payloads manager for the Zero-G Oven at Nanoracks LLC in Washington

 

2:30 p.m.  Prelaunch news conference
Kirk Shireman, manager of NASAs International Space Station Program at Johnson

 

Pete Hasbrook

 

Jeff Reddish, Wallops Range Antares project manager

 

Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager of Space Systems at Northrop Grumman

 

Kurt Eberly, Antares vice president at Northrop Grumman

 

Saturday, Nov. 2

 

9:30 a.m.  Launch coverage begins for a 9:59 a.m. liftoff

 

Monday, Nov. 4

 

4:10 a.m.  Coverage of Cygnus capture with the space stations robotic arm

 

6:30 a.m.  Cygnus installation operations coverage

 

Media registration for the launch and associated activities has closed. However, media may participate via phone in the Whats on Board briefing and prelaunch news conference. Media interested in participating must contact Gina Anderson at gina.n.anderson@nasa.gov for call details.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the space station until Jan. 13, 2020, when it will depart the station, deploy Nanoracks customer CubeSats, deorbit and dispose of several tons of trash during a fiery re-entry into Earths atmosphere around Jan. 31.

 

This will be the first mission under Northrop Grummans Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract with NASA, for which the company will fly a minimum of six missions to the International Space Station through 2024.

 

Learn more about this space station resupply mission at:

 

https://www.nasa.gov/northropgrumman