spacetoday.net: Orbital develops "go-forward" plan to continue ISS cargo deliveries

Posted: Fri, Nov 7, 2014, 8:02 AM ET (1302 GMT)
Cygnus approaching ISS illustration (Orbital Sciences Corp.)

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Wednesday its plans to resume commercial cargo deliveries to the international space station, which include buying launches from other companies. Orbital said that, in response to the October 28 accident involving an Antares rocket that destroyed a Cygnus cargo spacecraft, Orbital will accelerate development up an upgraded version of the Antares with a new first stage that would be ready for launches starting in 2016. In the meantime, Orbital will purchase one or more launches from another company to allow them to send Cygnus missions to the ISS while the Antares is being upgraded. Orbital officials said they are in talks with two American companies and one European company about launching Cygnus spacecraft, but did not disclose the companies or launch vehicles under consideration. Orbital said it's unlikely it will perform future launches of the current version of the Antares, which uses AJ26 engines in its first stage; a turbopump failure in one of those engines appears to be the cause of last week's launch failure.