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[b]SS Alan Bean set to launch on NG-12 mission[/b] NASA commercial cargo provider Northrop Grumman is scheduled to launch its next resupply mission to the International Space Station at 9:59 a.m. EDT [1359 GMT] Saturday, Nov. 2. Loaded with around 8,200 pounds [3,720 kilograms] of research, crew supplies, and hardware, Northrop Grumman's 12th commercial resupply mission for the space station will launch on the company's Cygnus cargo spacecraft on an Antares rocket from Virginia Space's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. [i][b]Above[/b]: Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket is seen in the early morning on launch Pad-0A, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.[/i] (NASA/Bill Ingalls) The Cygnus spacecraft, dubbed the SS Alan Bean, is named after the late Apollo and Skylab astronaut who died on May 26, 2018, at the age of 86. This Cygnus will launch 50 years to the month after Bean, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon flew to the Moon on NASA's Apollo 12 mission, during which Bean became the fourth human to walk on the lunar surface. Bean was the lunar module pilot aboard Intrepid with mission commander Conrad when they landed on Moon at the Ocean of Storms on Nov. 19, 1969. With a Nov. 2 launch, the Cygnus spacecraft will arrive at the space station Monday, Nov. 4 at about 4:10 a.m. EST (0910 GMT), Expedition 61 NASA astronaut Jessica Meir will grapple the spacecraft using the station's robotic arm. She will be backed up by NASA astronaut Christina Koch. After Cygnus capture, ground controllers will command the station's arm to rotate and install Cygnus on the bottom of the station's Unity module. More than 20 separate payloads sponsored by the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory will launch the SS Alan Bean, the largest number of ISS National Lab-sponsored payloads on a Northrop Grumman resupply mission to date. Among them: [list][*]AstroRad Vest, a Lockheed Martin and StemRad test of a radiation shielding vest that could aid in the development of shielding technologies for patients on Earth receiving radiation treatments and personnel who work in areas where radiation exposure is a risk. [*]Lamborghini's Carbon Fiber Composites for Aerospace Applications, testing the performance of proprietary materials, including forged and 3D-printed composites, to withstand exposure to temperature fluctuations, radiation, and atomic oxygen. This project is in collaboration with Houston Methodist Research Institute, which seeks to leverage knowledge gained from this study to enhance technologies for implantable drug delivery devices. [*]Commercial Polymer Recycling Facility (Recycler), Made In Space's fourth facility on the International Space Station, will complete the plastic sustainability lifecycle on-orbit by converting plastic trash on ISS into usable feedstock. This feedstock can then be integrated into our Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) that has been in operation since 2016. [*]Zero-G Oven, a Nanoracks and Zero-G Kitchen appliance designed to hold and bake food samples in the microgravity environment. As a first demonstration, the oven will be used to bake Hilton DoubleTree chocolate chip cookies using dough provided by the hotel chain.[/list] The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the space station until Jan. 13, 2020, when it will depart the station, deploy Nanoracks customer CubeSats, deorbit and dispose of several tons of trash during a fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere around Jan. 31. This will be the first mission under Northrop Grumman's Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract with NASA, for which the company will fly a minimum of six missions to the International Space Station through 2024.
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