Ukrainian-American rocket Antares launches the Cygnus spacecraft with cargo for ISS

The two-stage Antares rocket, developed with the participation of the Ukrainian side, has successfully launched the Cygnus cargo spacecraft into orbit.

Militarnyi reported by this.

The Ukrainian-American launch vehicle Antares was launched from the US launch site with Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus robotic spacecraft, which will deliver cargo to the ISS. About it informed in the Yuzhnoye Design Office.

At 19:40 Kyiv time (12:40 EST) from the Space Flight Center on Wallops Island (Virginia, USA), the first launch of a medium-class launch vehicle in 2022 took place Antares.

This was the first launch in 2022 of a medium-class Antares rocket. It orbited cargo vehicle Cygnus to deliver 3729 kg of NASA’s payload to the International Space Station.

“Under Antares program the Ukrainian party has accomplished all the design, test and Stage 1 Core Structure hardware production liabilities,” the Yuzhnoye Design Office noted.

The specialists from Yuzhnoye State Design Office, Yuzhmash Machine Building plant and Hartron-Arkos, supported Antares pre-launch processing, testing and launch.

Real-time launch technical support, acquisition and processing of the telemetry information were provided and as a result, specialists from Yuzhnoye State Design Officehave provided full scope of services in the area of their responsibility.

NG-17 Cygnus spacecraft was named after the astronaut Piers Sellers in honor of his role in assembling the ISS and his contributions as climate scientist. The main goal of the mission is to supply the ISS with crew supplies, space equipment and scientific experiments, then remove the waste cargo from the ISS and dispose of it in the Earth atmosphere.

This is the first Northrop Grumman Corporation mission to orbit the ISS using a docked Cygnus cargo spacecraft.

The Antares rocket

In total, since 2013 Antares rocket was launched 16 times, 15 of which being successful. American company Northrop Grumman with the participation of the Ukrainian specialists developed the two-stage rocket.

Under Antares program, the Ukrainian party has accomplished all the design, test and Stage 1 Core Structure hardware production liabilities.