Earth fire alarm delays Northrop Grumman cargo launch to space station
A Northrop Grumman rocket with more than 4 tons of supplies for the International Space Station will have to wait at least another day to launch after a fire alarm at the mission control center prevented a launch early Sunday (Nov. 6).
The Antares rocket was about 10 minutes away from a scheduled launch at NASA’s 5:50 am EST (1050 GMT) Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, when? Northrop Grumman the flight cancelled. A fire alarm at the company’s control center in nearby Dulles, Virginia, forced a building to be evacuated, preventing the launch controllers from proceeding with the launch.
“Our thoughts are with their team, their safety comes first, so we’re going to try again tomorrow,” NASA spokesman Chelsey Ballarte said during live commentary. The launch is now scheduled for Monday, November 6 at 5:27 a.m. EST (1027 GMT). You can watch the Cygnus cargo launch live on Space.comcourtesy of NASA TV, starting at 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT).
Northrop Grumman will use his Antares rocket to launch the unmanned NG-18 . to launch Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station on a mission to deliver more than 8,200 pounds (3,720 kilograms) of supplies to the lab’s astronaut crew. It is the 18th cargo mission for NASA by Northrop Grumman.
Related: Northrop Grumman’s Private Antares Rocket: 5 Surprising Facts
The upcoming launch is also Northrop Grumman’s heaviest delivery to date, with the company bringing in approximately 20kg of additional inventory as a result of refinements to the launch system. Among its precious cargo are a bioprinter that will attempt to print human knee cartilage in space and cow ovarian cells to study how weightlessness affects cell growth.
If all goes well, the freighter NG-18 Cygnus — that called the SS Sally Ride in honor of astronaut Sally Ridethe first American woman in space who died in 2012– should arrive at the space station on Wednesday (November 10).
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