​The mission was dogged by setbacks before launch, but eventually managed to deliver more than 3 tons of equipment and supplies for the crew of the International Space Station, although one of the capsule’s two solar panels was not working.

There are currently 7 people on board the International Space Station: Russians Serhii Prokopiev, Dmytro Petelin and Anna Kikina, Americans Francisco Rubio, Nicole Aunapu, Josh Kassada and Japanese Koichi Wakata. The supplies they need, as well as new science experiments or equipment necessary for the proper functioning of the space station, arrive in orbit aboard four vehicles: the Dragon capsule (which has a cargo version and a crew version), the Progress cargo ship launched into orbit . Russia — Cygnus capsule and HTV launched by Japan.

The now decommissioned European ATV has also been used in the past so that ESA could focus on building the Orion capsule service modules from the Artemis missions. And the HTV capsule has taken a break for now as the Japan Space Agency is currently transitioning from the H-II rocket to the new H-III, which will launch an improved version of the HTV capsule called the HTV. orbits in 2024 -X.

The war in Ukraine affects flights to the International Space Station

The launch of the Cygnus NG-18 capsule (named SS Sally Ride, after the first American astronaut) to the International Space Station was scheduled for Sunday, November 6, but was delayed for a reason that is rare in the aerospace industry: the team Center, located near Washington , D.C., was evacuated minutes before launch due to… an accidental fire alarm. Fortunately, the team was able to regroup for a new launch attempt on Monday, November 7.

This was the penultimate Antares rocket, because the history of the Antares rocket is quite complicated: the first stage of the rocket is made in Ukraine and runs on two Russian-made RD-181 engines. By February 2022, Northrop Grumman, the company that operates both the Antares rocket and the Cygnus capsule, had 2 complete Antares rockets in stock, and it was clear to everyone why they wouldn’t get more. There are plans to modernize the Antares rocket, using the primary stage of production of the American company Firefly Aerospace.

The strangeness of the Antares rocket continues: it is the only rocket used for one purpose: to launch the Cygnus capsule. A capsule that will continue to be launched, even during the transition to a new version of the Antares rocket, because Northrop Grumman signed a contract in this direction with SpaceX. So the Falcon 9 will launch both Dragon capsules to the ISS and Cygnus for a while (which is why NASA’s reservations and contracts with several companies that can launch rockets into orbit are imported).

A swan haunted by failure

It is not clear whether this was a display error or whether the upper stage was in an unnatural position before the final maneuver that finally managed to send the Cygnus capsule on the correct trajectory to rendezvous with the International Space Station (I am not saying that Antares is one of the few rockets that uses a solid fuel upper stage). But immediately after launch, mission observers realized that only one of the two solar panels on Cygnus had detached (a problem encountered relatively recently by the interplanetary probe Lucy, which has the same type of solar panels).

Fortunately, the power provided by the well-functioning panel was enough for Cygnus to reach the International Space Station at noon on Wednesday, November 9. The encounter with the ISS was not without thrills, as there was a risk that the uneven panel would start to separate during docking maneuvers, and an unexpected situation is the last thing you want when two vehicles are approaching each other at speed . 27,500 km/h, at an altitude of 400 km.

In addition, during the first stages of approach maneuvers, the LIDAR system, with which the capsule measured the distance to the ISS, did not work. Fortunately, the docking was uneventful. The Cygnus capsule cannot dock directly with the station anyway, for safety reasons it only comes within a few meters of the US Unity module, where it is picked up by the station’s robotic arm and an arm controlled by US astronaut Nicole Mann takes the capsule into the docking port.

The Cygnus capsule, part of Northrop Grumman’s portfolio, is manufactured by the European company Thales Alenia in Turin, Italy, and is structurally similar to former cargo modules used in the space shuttle’s hold (modules named Leonardo, Rafael and Donatello, in case I’m wasn’t clear enough when he said they were built in Italy). Leonardo, one of the former modules, is now permanently docked with the International Space Station and is used for temporary storage of supplies.

Towards the end of the month, the crew will receive another shipment of supplies, this time aboard the Dragon capsule. While Cygnus NG-18 puts 3.7 tons into orbit, Dragon can launch 3.3 tons to the space station, but unlike Cygnus, it can return to Earth with more than 2.5 tons (usually experiments), while Cygnus is not reusable and will return destructively through the atmosphere at the end of the mission.

One capsule comes, another goes

While the Cygnus NG-18 capsule was on its way to the International Space Station, the Tianzhou-4 capsule detached from the Tianhe main module of the Chinese space station on Wednesday and is set to make a destructive re-entry through the atmosphere in the near future (without posing any danger because unlike the Chang Zheng 5B rocket, which could no longer be steered, the Tianzhou capsule can choose which area to dive into, usually an uninhabited area in the Pacific Ocean, and it also has a significantly lower mass than the primate stage of the Chang Zheng 5B).

Tianzhou is also used to support crews in orbit, but it is used exclusively by China for its own space station. As you read this, on the LC2 ramp at the Wenchang Space Center, the Chang Zheng 7 rocket is preparing to launch the Tianzhou-5 capsule, scheduled for launch on Saturday.

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