WASHINGTON — A Cygnus cargo spacecraft is set to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket for the first time, a combination that required more changes to the rocket than to the spacecraft.
NASA announced at a Jan. 26 briefing that it was targeting Jan. 30 at 12:07 p.m. Eastern for the launch of the NG-20 cargo mission from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40. That is a one-day slip from previous plans, which the agency said was to “accommodate launch pad readiness.” If Cygnus launches that day, it will arrive at the International Space Station early Feb. 1.
The launch marks the first time Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft has flown on Falcon 9. All previous launches of Cygnus have been on Northrop’s own Antares launch vehicle with the exception of two missions that launched on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 after an Antares launch failure in 2014.
Northrop plans to launch at least three Cygnus missions on Falcon 9 rockets as it works with Firefly Aerospace on a new version of the Antares, replacing the Ukrainian-built first stage powered by Russian engines with a stage developed by Firefly using its own engines. That vehicle, the Antares 330, is slated to begin launches as soon as mid-2025.
The shift to the Falcon 9 has been relatively smooth for Northrop. “We didn’t really have to make any modifications to the Cygnus,” said Cyrus Dhalla, vice president and general manager of tactical space systems at Northrop Grumman, during the briefing. The company did make minor changes to the cargo loading process, which he attributed to doing it in a new facility with different equipment.
The shift in launch vehicles doesn’t alter the capabilities of the Cygnus, he added. The NG-20 mission will carry a little more than 3,700 kilograms of cargo, the capacity of the current version of the vehicle.
SpaceX, though, did have to make changes to accommodate Cygnus, specifically its ability for “late load” of cargo within 24…
Read the full article here