Atlas V targeting Thursday launch of ISS cargo

United Launch Alliance plans to roll its 12th and final rocket of the year to a Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch pad this week.

The Atlas V rocket is targeting a 5:55 p.m. Thursday liftoff from Launch Complex 41 with a Cygnus cargo module carrying International Space Station supplies.

The exact time could change slightly and will be confirmed early in the week after the space station adjusts its orbit to put itself in the proper position for Soyuz crew vehicles coming and going next month.

At the Cape on Monday, launch teams plan to conduct a dress rehearsal of the Atlas V countdown.

On Tuesday, mission managers will gather for reviews confirming their readiness to launch. If no significant issues arise, ULA would roll the nearly 20-story rocket to the pad at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft is packed with more than 7,000 pounds of food, equipment and science experiments needed to support the six-person station crew orbiting 250 miles above the planet.

The mission will be the 60th flight by an Atlas V since 2002, but the rocket's first supporting a space station mission.

The Space Coast Office of Tourism is sponsoring a "Space Coast Launch Viewing Party" starting at 3 p.m. Thursday at Port Canaveral's Exploration Tower, located at 670 Dave Nisbet Drive.

Cygnus cargo ship hoisted atop Atlas V rocket

New life for shuttle engines

NASA has awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a $1.2 billion contract to resume production of the venerable RS-25 rocket engine, also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine, or SSME.

No, the space agency isn't pulling the shuttle out of retirement. The core stage of its next exploration rocket, the Space Launch System or SLS, will be powered by a quartet of the hydrogen-fueled engines originally designed to fly in groups of three on shuttle orbiters. The engines helped lift 135 shuttle missions between 1981 and 2011.

NASA has 16 former shuttle engines in stock at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, which are expected to power the first four SLS launches from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B.

The new contract will pay to re-start production lines and for engine materials. No new engines will be built until a second contract phase is ordered for a price to be determined.

NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne say the new engines will feature upgrades and modern manufacturing techniques that improve performance and reduce costs.

"Overall, the engine is expected to be dramatically simplified, with over 700 parts and 700 welds eliminated," an Aerojet Rocketdyne video says.

Unlike shuttle engines, however, SLS engines will not be reused, so their costs will support a single mission rather than being spread over multiple missions. A first SLS test launch from Kennedy Space Center is targeted for late 2018.

The SLS contract wasn't the only good news for Aerojet Rocketdyne last week. The company also announced a nearly $200 million deal with Boeing to provide the launch abort and in-space propulsion systems for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsules, which Boeing is developing under NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

Boeing hopes to launch Starliners carrying astronauts from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station by late 2017.

Orion in Ohio

NASA's Plum Brook Station facility in Sandusky, Ohio, on Monday afternoon will host an event welcoming the arrival of a European-built test version of the Orion crew capsule's power and propulsion module.

Months of tests there are intended to ensure that Orion's service module, provided by the European Space Agency and contractor Airbus, is ready to withstand the stresses of launch and space.

NASA says Plum Brook is home to the world’s largest vacuum chamber, the world's most powerful spacecraft acoustic test chamber and the world's highest capacity and most powerful spacecraft vibration table.

The two space agencies hope to see NASA's Space Launch System rocket launch Orion, with no crew on board, on a first test flight from Kennedy Space Center in late 2018.

Orion is the spacecraft NASA has been designing since 2006, at a current cost of roughly $10 billion, to carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, first near the moon and perhaps one day to Mars.

ULA books NRO launches

The Air Force recently awarded United Launch Alliance contracts to launch two missions for the National Reconnaissance Office, one that will fly from Cape Canaveral in 2017.

The two missions are part of the Air Force's block buy of 36 boosters between 2013 and 2017, ordered before some national security space launch contracts were opened to competition.

The first mission, labeled NROL-52, is scheduled to launch as early as Oct. 1, 2017 from the Cape. The second, labeled NROL-71, is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California's Central Coast as soon as Sept. 15, 2018.

"These launches will support the NRO's mission of providing innovative overhead intelligence systems for national security," said Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, commander of Space and Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles. "The Air Force's acquisition strategy for these contract awards achieves a balance between mission assurance, meeting operational needs, lowering launch costs, and reintroducing competition for national security space missions."

Off to Baikonur

The next crew preparing to launch to the International Space Station, including NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, will soon depart Russia for their Central Asian launch site, the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Kopra, veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and first-time flyer Timothy Peake of England, are scheduled to blast off Dec. 15 in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, four days after a three-person crew including NASA's Kjell Lindgren returns from space in a Soyuz.

"Now that we're getting close to flight, just a few weeks a way, we're really pumped," said Kopra, who will fly to space for the second time, in recent media interviews shown on NASA TV. "And we're very ready."

Scott proposes space spending

The $79.3 billion spending plan that Florida Gov. Rick Scott proposed last week for the 2016-17 budget year highlighted $7.5 million for launch complex improvements in Brevard County, which the governor's office said demonstrated the state's "leadership and commitment to spaceflight and related businesses as the Space Center transitions to commercial space flight."

No further details on specific projects funded by the Department of Transportation were immediately available. Space Florida, the state's aerospace economic development agency and spaceport authority, would continue to receive about $10 million in operating funds. That total would not include money dedicated to specific projects, like the infrastructure improvements or $2.5 million to help transition Kennedy Space Center's former space shuttle runway into a commercial spaceport.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.