Cygnus Spacecraft Makes Historic Rendezvous With Space Station 44
An anonymous reader writes "Orbital Sciences Corp's robotic Cygnus spacecraft made history by docking with the International Space Station early Sunday. From the article: 'The robotic Cygnus spacecraft was captured by space station astronauts using the outpost's robotic arm at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) as the two spacecraft sailed over the Indian Ocean. The orbital arrival, which occurred one week later than planned due to a software data glitch, appeared to go flawlessly.'"
"Cygnus" means "swan" in Latin. (Score:5, Funny)
Just so that everybody here knows, "cygnus" is Latin for "swan". I think that it's a very apt name for this amazing electromechanical device.
Just like swans, this spacecraft is strong and regal. It is proud of who it is. And it is what it wants to be; it does not cater to the whims and desires of others.
And just like swans, this spacecraft is about ruling its domain. While the swan rules the pond and the stream, this spacecraft rules the orbit of the Earth.
Yet again like swans, I doubt that this spacecraft would hesitate for a moment when it comes to destroying a man's genitalia.
If any spacecraft is to have the name Cygnus, I think that this one is very deserving.
Re:"Cygnus" means "swan" in Latin. (Score:4)
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Then it sounds like Cygnus is more appropriate. The Phoenix was reborn from ashes. In this case the flight of the Cygnus spacecraft is its swan song since it won't live to see another day.
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I should have made it clear that cygnus is the Greek word for swan.
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If it was supposed to burn up in the atmosphere but instead crashed into a heavily populated city, ruining it for all time, then Congress would be a good name.
How was this historic? (Score:5, Interesting)
OSC simply assembled other ppl's work and called it theirs, while claiming enough money to pay for it all. IOW, OSC really did not put skin into the game.
So again, nothing historic here.
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This is dangerous, as corporate entities honestly do not give a poop about PEOPLE, THE ENVIRONMENT, THE PLANET, or anything other than the so-called "bottom-line".
And you think governments care about anything other than money, power and getting re-elected?
How touchingly naive.
BTW, SpaceX launched their upgraded Falcon 9 for the first time this morning. They don't seem to have said yet whether the first stage recovery test worked.
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So again, nothing historic here.
It's like academic research: Lots of people might have worked long hours to make things happen, but in the end, somebody has to suck it up and take the credit. In this case, apparently that's OSC.
Three cheers to OSC for taking one for the team!
Re:How was this historic? (Score:4, Funny)
Something happened. It's now history. Therefor it's historic.
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It is a common confusion in English.
Historic means a very important, significant event happened.
Historical means just anything that happened in the past.
So really, you would say: "Something happened. It's now history. Therefor it's historical."
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So again, nothing historic here.
Just because it has been done before doesn't make this routine. More importantly, that there are now two companies with proven track records of delivering bulk cargo to the ISS, it implies that a disaster or major engineering flaw on one spacecraft won't stop the other spacecraft type from continuing to fly.
History is filled with examples of how fatal flaws resulted in a great many missed opportunities in space. In fact, with regards to the ISS if there was until very recently a flaw in the Progress space
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Just because it has been done before doesn't make this routine. More importantly, that there are now two companies with proven track records of delivering bulk cargo to the ISS, it implies that a disaster or major engineering flaw on one spacecraft won't stop the other spacecraft type from continuing to fly.
Oh, I am a big fan of redundancy, esp. for space systems. NASA under Nixon, reagan, and W proved that we need multiple launch systems to be in space constantly. However, when it comes to delivering cargo to the ISS, there is Russia, and ESA that deliver on on Russian ports, and SpaceX, and Japan that use berthing of the west. IOW, we already had redundancy in terms of cargo to the ISS. What is REALLY needed right now, is human flight to be restored.
Now you pointed out 2 of the options which is CST-100
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Human flight to be restored? I did not know Chinese and Russians had stopped.
Oh, you mean, "USian" human flight capability to be restored? Why? US should learn how to be an ex-imperial society just like the other old empires, here in UK (we still have a massive dose of delusions of grandeur at the political level), France, little Holland, Portugal and Spain...
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US should learn how to be an ex-imperial society just like the other old empires.
Simple question: Why?
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Secondly, for us to have bases in space and elsewhere, we need MULTIPLE launch systems. That way, when one has issues, then things can still go forward. Right now, the ISS is 100% dependent on Russia. We need for there to be 3 or more multiple human launchers and ideally at least 2 cargo launch systems in the same area. By that, I mean that ESA and Russia service cargo via the Russian ports. America has 2 services on the western berth (and now 3).
BTW,
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They were not first ... They did not build ... simply assembled other ppl's work and called it theirs, while claiming enough money to pay for it all.
you just described most companies in the US...
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Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can tell the government is involved when an operation that happened a week late due to a "software data glitch" went "flawlessly".
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Private corporation's journo., not a govt. quote (Score:2)
The quote came from a commercial corporate journalist, not a government source. Blame the private sector for this one.
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The capture at the ISS was flawless, even though the software glitch previously prevented the rendezvous and capture.
Try and spend a few days on Wikinews [wikinews.org] or some other volunteer news outlet, much less a commercial news publishing source before you can realistically start to criticize the kind of pressures that journalists find themselves under.
Cygnus (Score:5, Funny)
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Remember (Score:2)
Somewhat wasteful. (Score:2)
The pun is not intended, as the return trip for these craft is hauling away trash.
But it seems that these pods don't have any ceramic coating, so they completely disintegrate on reentry. That's a lot of precious metals and computing equipment to just throw away every time you fly up. Last I heard, there was a lot of pressure on precious metals mining, most of which is in China, who already are tightening the screws on pricing for foreigners.
Historic? (Score:5, Informative)
This is historic only in that Orbital Sciences is closest to NASA at heart.
Orbital has a $1.9B deal to provide 8 cargo flights. Each flight carries about 5000kg. Each is one way (no return payload).
SpaceX has a $1.9B deal to provide 12 cargo flights. Each flight carries about 10000kg. Each provides two way payload delivery.
Do the math. One of these makes sense. Unsurprisingly, the one that doesn't is the one that was stuck in orbit for a week.
At least Orbital is a bargain compared to NASA's shuttle-component-derived SLS.
Re:Historic? (Score:4, Insightful)
They both make sense in that there is redundancy. Add the Soyuz with its human transport and escape pod and you've got a pretty good justification for keeping the ISS going. Without all three the ISS becomes a liability rather than an asset.
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You say redundancy, I say pork barrel economics.
Re:Historic? (Score:4, Informative)
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Note that when the COTS contract proposals were submitted to NASA in the original RfP, the amounts per flight requested by each company was sealed and not disclosed to other participants. In other words, this was a closed bid process, where price was also not the major factor.
Being critical of Orbital because they submitted a higher price bid (still substantially less than the bid that both ATK and Boeing submitted for the same project) than SpaceX is just simply disingenuous and horribly distorting the fa
Docking with the International Space Station? (Score:3)
'The robotic Cygnus spacecraft was captured by space station astronauts using the outpost's robotic arm at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) as the two spacecraft sailed over the Indian Ocean.
So this thing was flying along side the space station and the astronauts snatched it up and stuck it on the docking port. All lewd innuendoes aside, the Cygnus spacecraft didn't do anything other than match orbits. Not that I think matching orbits like that is a trivial ting, but it a hell of a lot easier to do than actually docking. Commercial satellite companies put objects in precision orbits all the time.
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You're full of shit. The ATV, Progress, and Soyuz all dock directly with the station.