NASA Wallops targets 5:50 a.m. Sunday to launch Antares resupply mission to the ISS

ATLANTIC, Va. – NASA and commercial cargo provider Northrop Grumman are targeting 5:50 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, for launch of the company’s 18th resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Live coverage of the launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., will air on NASA Television. Watch live beginning at 5:30 a.m. on the agency’s website at: www.nasa.gov/live  WESR 103.3 will be broadcasting a live countdown beginning at 5:30 a.m. Sunday.

Loaded with approximately 8,200 pounds of research, crew supplies, and hardware, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft will launch on the company’s Antares rocket from Virginia Space’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. It will arrive at the space station on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Highlights of hardware and space station research facilitated by samples and equipment aboard this Cygnus are:

• A facility and study that attempt to advance the 3D biological printing of human tissue in space
• A study taking advantage of microgravity to better understand catastrophic mudflows that can occur after wildfires
• Uganda and Zimbabwe’s first satellites developed as a part of the BIRDS program, an interdisciplinary project for non-space faring countries
• An investigation into how microgravity influences ovary function
• An experiment that studies if changes space-grown plants undergo to adapt to microgravity can be transmitted through seeds to the next generation
• Hardware to be installed outside the station in preparation for the installation of Roll-Out Solar Arrays

The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the space station until late January 2023 when it will depart, disposing of several tons of trash during a destructive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

This Cygnus is dubbed the S.S. Sally Ride in honor of late NASA astronaut, physicist, and first American woman to fly in space, Sally Ride. Ride spent 14 days across two space shuttle missions performing science experiments, making observations of Earth, deploying satellites, and conducting technology demonstrations. She was an advocate for diversity and representation in science and dedicated much of her life to inspiring young people, particularly young women, to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.

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