Space weather delays Orbital cargo launch to Thursday

[Buster's Uncle]

Space weather delays Orbital cargo launch to Thursday
AFP
By Kerry SHERIDAN  2 hours ago



An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is rolled out to a launchpad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on January 5, 2014



Washington (AFP) - Turbulent space weather forced Orbital Sciences on Wednesday to postpone the launch of its unmanned Cygnus spacecraft on a supply mission the International Space Station.

The company said it is now aiming for Thursday to launch its cargo ship atop an Antares rocket, carrying 2,780 pounds (1,260 kilograms) of gear including science experiments, supplies and hardware.

The delay was due to what NASA described as "the first significant" solar flare of the year, causing increased levels of space radiation that might have damaged the spacecraft's electronics.

The US space agency said the potent X-class solar flare erupted January 7 at 1:32 pm (1832 GMT).

Solar flares are bursts of magnetic energy that originate on the Sun, unleashing radiation that can briefly disrupt radio signals and GPS and satellite communications.

"Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground," NASA said.



An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket on the launchpad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility


Orbital said in a statement the delay was "due to an unusually high level of space radiation."

The levels "exceeded by a considerable margin the constraints imposed on the mission to ensure the rocket's electronic systems are not impacted by a harsh radiation environment."

On Thursday, the liftoff time from Wallops Island, Virginia would be 1:10 pm (1810 GMT), allowing the cargo ship to reach the ISS by January 12.

Orbital's attempt was previously delayed in December due to a cooling system breakdown at the ISS, which required American astronauts to make two spacewalks in order to replace an ammonia cooling pump.

When the launch goes ahead, it will mark the company's first regularly contracted mission and its second trip to the orbiting outpost, coming on the heels of a successful demonstration launch in September.

That mission proved "that the company can reliably carry out regularly scheduled operational missions to the ISS for NASA," said David Thompson, Orbital's chairman and chief executive officer.

Orbital has a contract with NASA worth 1.9 billion dollars for eight cargo resupply missions to the global space lab.

Orbital and SpaceX are two private companies that have stepped in to ensure the United States' ability to reach the ISS, after the retirement of the 30-year space shuttle program in 2011.

SpaceX, owned by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, became the first commercial entity to reach the space station with its Dragon cargo ship in 2012, and has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

Unlike SpaceX's Dragon capsule, Cygnus cannot return to Earth intact but will burn up on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, disposing of any unwanted cargo.


http://news.yahoo.com/space-weather-forces-orbital-postpone-cargo-launch-141626484.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Huge Solar Flare Delays Private Rocket Launch to Space Station
SPACE.com
by Tariq Malik, Managing Editor  3 hours ago



Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft is attached to its Antares rocket on Dec. 10, 2013



WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — A huge solar unleashed by the sun has delayed plans to launch a private cargo ship to the International Space Station today (Jan. due to worry over space weather radiation.

The first major solar flare of 2014 erupted from a massive sunspot seven times the size of Earth on Tuesday (Jan. 7) after a series of mid-level sun storms in recent days. The event occurred as the commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences was preparing to launch a landmark cargo delivery flight to the space station today with its Antares rocket and robotic Cygnus spacecraft.

"We are concerned about mission failure," Orbital's Chief Technical Officer Antonio Elias told reporters in a teleconference today. The company is evaluating the extent of Tuesday's flare and the potential for solar radiation to interfere with critical systems like gyroscopes and avionics, he added.

Elias said Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft is designed to withstand space weather events like Tuesday's flare during its weeks-long mission at the space station, so the vehicle isn't vulnerable to the same radiation concerns as its Antares rocket.



An Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket is seen on launch Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility


Space weather delay

Orbital Sciences has been monitoring space weather since Sunday, when the company began tracking an uptick in solar activity. But it was Tuesday's huge solar flare, which registered as an X1.2-class sun storm — the strongest class of solar flares the sun experiences — that led to today's delay. It occurred just hours after an intense M7.2-class solar flare earlier in the day.

The Antares rocket was awaiting a 1:32 p.m. EST (1832 GMT) launch today from a pad here at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility when the decision to delay was made. It is the latest delay for the mission, which was initially delayed from a mid-December liftoff when astronauts on the station had to perform emergency cooling system repairs, and later postponed a day due to the sub-freezing temperatures affecting the United States this week.

"Sometimes, you just don't get off the ground when you want to," Orbital Sciences executive vice president Frank Culbertson told reporters in a teleconference today. "This isn't a failure in the system, it is a delay. But all we're really delaying is the success that's going to come when we execute this mission."

Culbertson said Orbital Sciences officials hope to make a decision whether to attempt another launch try on Thursday by 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) today. A launch attempt on Thursday would occur at 1:07 p.m. EST (1807 GMT), should Orbital decide to pursue it.

The solar flare currently poses no threat to the six astronauts and cosmonauts currently living on the International Space Station. The crew will not have to any measures to shelter themselves from the solar flare's space radiation, NASA spokesman Rob Navias, of the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, told SPACE.com in an email.



This NASA view combines two images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on Jan. 7, 2014


Giant sunspot spouts solar flare

By coincidence, the Jan. 7 solar flare occurred at 1:32 p.m. EST — exactly 24 hours before today's launch target times— from an active sunspot region known as AR1944. The sunspot facing Earth from the middle of the sun, as viewed from Earth, and is "one of the largest sunspots seen in the last 10 years," NASA officials said in a statement Tuesday.

"The solar flux activity that occurred late yesterday afternoon resulted in an increasing level of radiation beyond what the Antares engineering team monitored earlier in the day," NASA officials added in a separate statement today. "Overnight, Orbital's engineers conducted an analysis of the radiation levels, but the Antares team decided to postpone the launch to further examine the potential effects of the space radiation on the rocket's avionics. The Cygnus spacecraft would not be affected by the solar event."

The sun is currently in an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle. The current cycle, known as Solar Cycle 24, began in 2008.

Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft had a 95-percent chance of good weather for today's planned launch. That weather forecast deteriorates as the week progresses, with cloudy conditions dropping it to 75-percent chance of favorable weather on Thursday, and a 30-percent chance of good launch conditions on Friday. Rain is expected on Saturday, Culbertson said.



This labeled image taken by SDO's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager shows the location of two active regions of the Sun


Orbital Sciences officials said they are closely monitoring the fallout from Tuesday's solar flares.

"Orbital will continue to monitor the levels of space radiation with a goal of setting a new launch date as soon as possible," company officials said.

Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to launch 40,000 lbs. of supplies to the International Space Station by 2016 using its Antares rockets and disposable Cygnus spacecraft. The first Antares and Cygnus test flights launched in 2013, with today's launch expected to mark the first official cargo delivery for Orbital.

For the delivery flight, called Orb-1, the Cygnus spacecraft is carrying 2,780 pounds (1,260 kilograms) of gear for the International Space Station. That haul includes a space ant colony, 33 small cubesat satellites and 23 other experiments designed students from across the country.

The Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences is one of two companies with a NASA contract to delivery supplies to the space station. The other company is SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., which has launched two of 12 planned delivery missions for NASA under a $1.6 billion agreement. The third mission in SpaceX's schedule is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Feb. 22.

Visit SPACE.com today for complete coverage of Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo launch to the International Space Station. SPACE.com partner Spaceflight Now is also offering updates via its Cygnus Mission Status Center.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 11:45 a.m. EST to include new details on today's Cygnus and Antares launch delay by Orbital Sciences.


http://news.yahoo.com/huge-solar-flare-delays-private-rocket-launch-space-143436537.html