Space Station Commercial Cargo Carrier Arriving At NASA Wallops

In article ,
says...

The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled for a demonstration flight early
next year on an Orbital Taurus II launch vehicle under NASA's
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement with the
company. Cygnus will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional
Spaceport's pad 0A at Wallops. For information about the spacecraft,
visit:

http://www.orbital.com/CargoResupplyServices/

I wish them luck. Commercial competition like this is a *good thing*.

Orbital obviously has more experience at this than SpaceX, which should
make some people around here happy. But back in the days of the first
few Pegasus flights, Orbital was the "new kid on the block" and the same
sort of nay-sayers were around saying that only the "big boys" could
build and fly launch vehicles successfully. This was especially true
when early Pegasus flights seemed to be plagued by failure. Pegasus had
three failures and two "partial successes" in the first 14 flights which
made for a somewhat dismal looking success rate.

I think it's good to see that Orbital is still pushing the envelope of
what US commercial spaceflight can accomplish.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011

While Orbital are not the new kids on the block, aren't they also the
ones who put two earth sensing satellites in a row into the briney
deep?

--
The glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. The glass has a leak.
The real question is "Can it be patched?"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

On 8/22/2011 8:43 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
While Orbital are not the new kids on the block, aren't they also the
ones who put two earth sensing satellites in a row into the briney
deep?

With the same failure each time; the nose fairing covering the satellite
failed to jettison, leading to too much mass for the upper stage to
accelerate to orbital velocity.


Pat