Cygnus NG-23

Last updated

NG-23
NamesCRS NG-23
Mission type ISS resupply
Operator Northrop Grumman
Spacecraft properties
SpacecraftS.S. William "Willie" C. McCool
Spacecraft type Extended Cygnus
Manufacturer
Start of mission
Launch date15 September 2025
Rocket Falcon 9 Block 5
Launch site Cape Canaveral, SLC‑40
Contractor SpaceX
Orbital parameters
Reference system Geocentric orbit
Regime Low Earth orbit
Inclination 51.66°
Berthing at ISS
Berthing port Unity nadir
Cygnus NG-23 Patch.png
Mission patch

NG-23 will be the twenty-second flight of the Cygnus, an expendable American cargo spacecraft used for International Space Station (ISS) logistics missions, that will launched on 15 September 2025. It is operated by Northrop Grumman under a Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. The spacecraft is an Enhanced Cygnus, named the S.S. William "Willie" C. McCool in honor of the NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Colombia disaster.

Contents

NG-23 will be the third launch of a Cygnus spacecraft on a Falcon 9 after Northrop Grumman exhausted the supply of its Antares 230+ rocket. The Antares used a Russian-built engine and Ukrainian-built first stage, and production ceased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Northrop Grumman expects its next-generation Antares 300 rocket that does not depend on Ukrainian or Russian parts to be ready to fly NG-22. As an interim solution, Northrop Grumman contracted with its CRS competitor SpaceX to launch NG-20, 21 and 23 using its Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. [1]

History

Cygnus was developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, partially funded by NASA under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. To create Cygnus, Orbital paired the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, built by Thales Alenia Space and previously used by the Space Shuttle for ISS logistics, with a service module based on Orbital's GEOStar, a satellite bus. The larger Extended Cygnus was introduced in 2015. Orbital Sciences was renamed Orbital ATK in 2015 and Northrop Grumman purchased Orbital in 2018 and has continued to operate Cygnus missions.

Cygnus NG-23 is the Eleventh Cygnus mission under the Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract.

Production and integration of Cygnus spacecraft are performed in Dulles, Virginia. The Cygnus service module is mated with the pressurized cargo module at the launch site, and mission operations are conducted from control centers in Dulles, Virginia and Houston, Texas. [2]

The NG-23 spacecraft was named the S.S. William "Willie" C. McCool in honor of the NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Colombia disaster. This is the First flight of the Extended-sized Cygnus PCM. [3]

Manifest

The Cygnus NG-23 mission was remanifested after the previous Cygnus NG-22 PCM received substantial damage during transportation to the launch site. Cygnus NG-22 was planned for a launch in June 2025. After evaluation of damage NASA and Northrop Grumman cancelled the NG-22 mission in favor of the next manifested Cygnus. [4] [5] [6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "CRS NG-23 Mission". Next Spaceflight. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  2. ↑ "Cygnus Spacecraft". Northrop Grumman. 6 January 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  3. ↑ "Cygnus NG-23" (PDF). Northrop Grumman. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  4. ↑ "NASA cancels cargo launch to ISS due to damaged Cygnus spacecraft". Space.Com. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  5. ↑ "After a spacecraft was damaged en route to launch, NASA says it won't launch". Ars Technica. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
  6. ↑ "Cygnus mission to ISS scrapped after finding spacecraft damage". Space News. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.