Orbital ATK: 12/04/2015

For the first time in its history, the unmanned cygnus spacecraft will ride into orbit atop an atlas v rocket, courtesy of united launch alliance, and launch from cape canaveral in florida.

Cygnus received a few upgrades since the last time it flew, increasing its carrying capacity and cargo volume. Dubbed the ss deke slayton ii after the famous nasa astronaut, the space freighter is loaded with more than 7000 pounds of science hardware and supplies for use by the expedition 45 and 46 crews.

The packed bed reactor experiment will be studying the behavior of gases and liquids when they flow together, something that could help improve the design of future water recovery systems, fuel cells and more.

A new burning and suppression of solids payload is on the flight and will explore flame resistant materials for use in space and here on earth. And nasa’s small spacecraft technology program is sending two nodes satellites to demonstrate how to control entire swarms of spacecraft.

We’re all about robotics this december and one twitter follower started us off with this question: how is robotic technology being used on the station?

Well just a few days after orbital’s launch, one of the biggest robotic devices will spring into action. The station crew will use the large canadarm2 robotic arm to reach out and capture cygnus once it arrives.

The 57.7 foot long limb has seven motorized joints and can routinely be seen moving equipment, astronauts, spacecraft, and even huge pieces of the station itself. It even has a super sophisticated attachment called dextre to perform finely tuned repairs and experiment work.

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