OA-5, previously known as Orbital-5, was the seventh planned flight of the Orbital Sciences' uncrewed resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its sixth flight to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...

under the

Commercial Resupply Services Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of flights awarded by NASA for the delivery of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) on commercially operated spacecraft. The first CRS contracts were signed in 2008 and awarde ...

contract with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

. The mission launched on 17 October 2016 at 23:45:36 UTC. Orbital Sciences and NASA jointly developed a new space transportation system to provide commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station (ISS). Under the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program, Orbital designed and built Antares, a medium-class launch vehicle; Cygnus, an advanced maneuvering spacecraft; and a Pressurized Cargo Module which is provided by Orbital's industrial partner Thales Alenia Space. The Cygnus spacecraft for this mission is named the S.S. ''Alan Poindexter'' in honor to astronaut Alan G. Poindexter, a deceased

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

commander. Poindexter was selected in the 1998 NASA Group (G17) and went into orbit aboard Space Shuttle missions

STS-122 STS-122 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS), flown by the . STS-122 marked the 24th shuttle mission to the ISS, and the 121st Space Shuttle flight overall. The mission was also referred to as ISS-1E by the ...

and

STS-131 STS-131 (ISS assembly flight 19A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). launched on 5 April 2010 at 6:21 am from LC-39A, and landed at 9:08 am on 20 April 2010 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space C ...

History

The COTS demonstration mission was successfully conducted in September 2013, and Orbital commenced operational ISS cargo missions under the Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) program with two missions in 2014. Regrettably, the third operational mission, Cygnus Orb-3, was not successful due to spectacular

Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by σ Scorpii and τ S ...

failure during launch. The company decided to discontinue the Antares 100 series and accelerate the introduction of a new propulsion system. The Antares system is being upgraded with newly built RD-181 first stage engines to provide greater payload performance and increased reliability. In late 2014, Orbital Sciences contracted

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, ...

for an

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Marti ...

launch of Cygnus CRS OA-4 in late 2015 from Cape Canaveral,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

, and with a second Atlas V launch of Cygnus in 2016. The company plans three Cygnus missions in 2016, in the first ( Cygnus CRS OA-6), third (Cygnus CRS OA-5) and fourth quarters (

Cygnus OA-7 OA-7, previously known as Orbital-7, is the eighth flight of the Orbital ATK uncrewed resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its seventh flight to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. The m ...

) of 2016. The Cygnus OA-5 and OA-7 will fly on the new

Antares 230 Development The NASA COTS award was for and Orbital Sciences expected to invest an additional $150 million, split between $130 million for the booster and $20 million for the spacecraft. A Commercial Resupply Service contract of $1.9 bil ...

and OA-6 will fly on second Atlas V in first quarter of 2016. These three missions enable Orbital ATK to fulfill their CRS contracted payload obligation. This particular mission is known as OA-5. Production and integration of Cygnus spacecraft is performed in Dulles, Virginia. The Cygnus service module is mated with the pressurized cargo module at the launch site, and mission operations are conducted from control centers in Dulles, Virginia and

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

Spacecraft

This was the sixth of ten flights by

Orbital ATK Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) was a sector (business segment) of Northrop Grumman from 2018 through 2019. It was formed from Orbital ATK Inc. a company which resulted from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alli ...

under the

(CRS) contract with

. This was the third flight of the Enhanced sized Cygnus PCM. The mission successfully launched on 17 October 2016, 23:45 UTC. In keeping with an Orbital ATK tradition, this Cygnus spacecraft is named the S.S. ''Alan Poindexter'' after the NASA astronaut who flew aboard the Space Shuttle twice (2008 and 2010).

Manifest

Total cargo mass on ascent: * Pressurized cargo with packaging: ** Science investigations: ** Crew supplies: ** Vehicle hardware: ** Spacewalk equipment: ** Computer resources: ** Russian hardware: * Unpressurized cargo (CubeSats): * Total cargo on descent (destructive):

Other OA projects

had planned the next Cygnus flight,

Cygnus CRS OA-7 OA-7, previously known as Orbital-7, is the eighth flight of the Orbital ATK uncrewed resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its seventh flight to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. The m ...

, for 30 December 2016. However, in October 2016, it was announced that OA-7 was being delayed until March 2017 and switched from the

launch vehicle to a

rocket to provide additional cargo up mass for NASA. In 2015, under the NASA CRS-1 contract, Orbital Sciences was awarded three extension flights for 2017 and 2018. The Cygnus CRS OA-8E flight has tentatively been scheduled for 12 June 2017, followed by Cygnus OA-9E later that year and OA-10E in 2018. Cargo vehicle scheduling is dynamic with the ISS partners. The schedule will be influenced by the first USA crewed commercial flights (

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

) to ISS since Space Shuttle retirement in 2011.

Cubesat release

On 25 November 2016, after leaving the ISS, the spacecraft raised its orbit to 500 kilometers and released four Lemur-2 cubesats for

Spire Global Spire Global, Inc. is a space-to-cloud data and analytics company that specializes in the tracking of global data sets powered by a large constellation of nanosatellites, such as the tracking of maritime, aviation and weather patterns. The comp ...

References