posted 10-24-2019 05:15 PM               

Northrop Grumman names 12th Cygnus spaceship for Apollo 12 astronaut

Northrop Grumman is honoring an Apollo 12 moonwalker with the naming of its 12th spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station.

The "S.S. Alan Bean," a Cygnus spacecraft, pays tribute to the late astronaut who became the fourth person to walk on the moon on Nov. 19, 1969. The capsule is scheduled to launch atop a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Nov. 2.

posted 11-01-2019 09:12 AM               

SS Alan Bean set to launch on NG-12 mission

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.

Above: 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. (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:

• 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.

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.

posted 11-02-2019 07:34 AM               

On Saturday, Nov. 2 at 9:59 a.m. EDT (1359 GMT), Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft launched from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on the NG-12 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station.

posted 11-04-2019 07:16 AM               

SS Alan Bean arrives at space station

Expedition 61 flight engineers Jessica Meir and Christina Koch on Monday (Nov. 4) used the International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple Northrop Grumman's NG-12 Cygnus, the S.S. Alan Bean, as Andrew Morgan monitored the spacecraft's systems during its approach.

The space station was flying over Madagascar when the Cygnus was captured at 4:10 a.m. EST (0910 GMT).

The cargo vehicle was then berthed the Earth-facing port of the Unity module at 6:21 a.m. EST (1110 GMT).

posted 01-31-2020 08:52 AM               

SS Alan Bean departs space station

Northrop Grumman's NG-12 Cygnus spacecraft, the "S.S. Alan Bean," departed the International Space Station on Friday (Jan. 31) at 9:36 a.m. EST (1436 GMT), three months after arriving at the orbiting lab to deliver 8,200 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments to the orbiting laboratory.

The Cygnus separation demonstrated a new release position for departure operations and incorporated the first ground-controlled release. The new orientation allows for easier drift away from the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm.

With Expedition 61 flight engineers Drew Morgan and Jessica Meir providing backup support, ground controllers sent commands to the Canadarm2 to release the cargo spacecraft after they remotely unbolted the Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module and maneuvered it into release position.

Within 24 hours of its release, the Cygnus will begin its secondary mission – deploying a series of nanosatellites – before Northrop Grumman flight controllers in Dulles, Virginia, initiate its deorbit and it executes a destructive reentry into Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 29.