Northrop grumman set to launch 12th cargo delivery mission to the international space station for nasa

Northrop grumman corporation is set to launch the company's antarestm rocket carrying its cygnustm cargo spacecraft to the international space station for nasa. pending completion of cargo late load and acceptable local weather conditions, the launch will take place nov. 2, with lift-off scheduled for 9:59 a.m. edt from the mid-atlantic regional spaceport pad 0a on wallops island, virginia, at nasa's wallops flight facility. northrop grumman's antares rocket and cygnus spacecraft are set to launch the company's 12th cargo delivery mission to the international space station. scheduled to rendezvous and berth with the station on nov. 4, 2019, ng-12 marks the 12th cygnus mission to deliver cargo to the iss and the first launch under the company's commercial resupply services-2 (crs-2) contract. ng-12 will be the heaviest load carried by both cygnus and antares with approximately 8,200 pounds (3,729 kilograms) of cargo for the station. the rocket's 230+ version will be used for this mission which includes upgrades to the stage 1 core, lighter composite structures and an optimized second stage motor. the upgraded stage 1 core allows the antares engines to perform at full thrust throughout most of the first stage flight profile. on this mission, cygnus will undergo a late load of critical cargo 24 hours before the scheduled launch. this capability allows time-sensitive payloads, such as the live rodents flying on cygnus, to be safely transported to the space station. earlier this year, northrop grumman began providing science facilities for nasa to support rodent research at the eastern virginia medical school in norfolk, virginia. a key flexibility feature added for crs-2 is the ability for nasa to significantly alter the final cargo load by up to 20% as late as 24 hours before lift off. another new capability that will be demonstrated during this mission is the simultaneous operation of two cygnus spacecraft in orbit. the ng-12 mission will be in orbit at the same time as the ng-11 cygnus spacecraft, which launched in april 2019 on an extended duration flight. the ability to fly two vehicles at once further demonstrates the robustness of cygnus to support the goals of nasa's ambitious missions.
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