Note: Only forum leaders may delete posts.
*HTML is ON *UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend
Smilies Legend
Space weather scrub: Space station cargo delivery delayed by solar flare [i]A massive flare eruption from the sun has scrubbed the planned Wednesday (Jan. 8) launch of a private cargo freighter to the International Space Station. The intense high-energy radiation rose from what appears to be one of the largest sunspot groups seen on the star's surface in a decade. Orbital Sciences Corporation had been planning to launch its Antares rocket, topped with a Cygnus spacecraft, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport's Pad 0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Orb-1 mission was to lift off at 1:32 p.m. EST (1832 GMT), coincidentally the same time that the solar flare erupted Tuesday. "Early this morning, the Antares launch team decided to scrub [Wednesday's] launch attempt due to an unusually high level of space radiation," Orbital officials said. "[The proton-flux 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."[/i]
Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts
Copyright 1999-2024 collectSPACE. All rights reserved.