Northrop Grumman Corporation has planned to launch the company’s 14th resupply mission (NG-14) to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract, the company reported on Monday. Liftoff of the Antares rocket is scheduled for Oct. 1 at 9:38 p.m. EDT from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A on Wallops Island, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft will launch on the Antares rocket, carrying scientific research, supplies and hardware for the ISS astronauts. Cygnus hosts the Northrop Grumman-built SharkSat payload and will perform the Saffire–V experiment. The company has also initiated a secondary mission for Cygnus after leaving the ISS.
The NG-14 mission commemorates Kalpana Chawla, a NASA astronaut and the first woman of Indian descent to fly in space. The S.S. Kalpana Chawla will remain attached to the ISS for approximately three months before departing with up to 8,200 pounds (approximately 3,720 kilograms) of disposal cargo.
Northrop Grumman’s announcement adds to the company’s deep rooted partnership with NASA. Recently, the company announced that it worked with NASA to complete a static fire test for the rocket motor element of the Space Launch System in Promontory, Utah, ahead of the agency’s subsequent Artemis deep-space missions.
The NASA-Northrop team tested the SLS heavy-lift vehicle’s flight support booster and saw the rocket component generate over 3.6M pounds of thrust within two minutes. The five-segment FSB-1 spans 154 feet and will operate as part of a twin-booster component designed to handle 75 percent of the SLS rocket’s initial thrust during launch.
About Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense and cyberspace to meet the ever evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our 90,000 employees define possible every day using science, technology and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products and services.
