Cygnus CRS-15 (NG-15, Katherine Johnson)

Launch data:

Description:

• Orbital Sciences CYGNUS CRS Flight 15, is the 16 flight of the Orbital ATK unmanned resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its 14 flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Orbital and NASA jointly developed a new space transportation system to provide commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station (ISS). Under the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program, then Orbital Sciences designed and built Antares, a medium-class launch vehicle; Cygnus, an advanced maneuvering spacecraft, and a Pressurized Cargo Module which is provided by Orbital′s industrial partner Thales Alenia Space.

Mission details:

• On Feb 20, 2021 Northrop Grumman launched the Cygnus NG-15 cargo ship, S.S. Katherine Johnson, on an Antares 230+ rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. NG-15 will rendezvous with the ISS; the 8050 kg spacecraft includes 3734 kg of pressurized cargo. Aboard Cygnus for later deployment is a JAXA J-SSOD (#16) with seven cubesats.
  The S.S. Katherine Johnson was captured by Candarm-2 at 09:38 UTC Feb 22 and berthed (to Unity nadir) by SSRMS, at 12:16 UTC.
• J-SSOD-16 will be transferred to Kibo for later deployment. Nanoracks NRCSD-E and SEOPS-LLC Slingshot deployers are also attached to Cygnus and will deploy their payloads after NG-15 leaves ISS. Slingshot will deploy Gunsmoke-J and two other military cubesats (maybe LANL/SOCOM Prometheus 2 sats?). NRCSD-E carries the UAE′s DhabiSat and the IT-SPINS satellite from Montana State U.
• Also aboard the Antares were nine ThinSat `strings' (each a set of small payload boxes connected by cables), ejected from the Antares second stage 13 min after launch. The satellites are expected to reenter in a matter of days. Each ThinSat string is 1 to 2 kg in mass and up to 2 metres long, but they have not been added to the US satellite catalog despite meeting the traditional criteria for being counted as satellites.
• Cygnus NG-15, in free flight after departing ISS, released three cubesats from its SEOPS LLC Slingshot deployer on Jun 30. Two of the satellites are thought to be ORCA-7 and Gunsmoke-J 3. NG-15 was deorbited over the Pacific at about 0130 UTC Jul 2.

External links:

• AmericaSpace: 210627-NG-15 overvieuw
• AmericaSpace: 210223-NG-15 Arrives at Space Station
• AmericaSpace: 210221-NG-15 Cygnus Launch
• AmericaSpace: 210211-Next Cygnus Mission

Astrophilately covers:

Cygnus NG-15 launch, cancel Wallops Island. Credit: #411

Cygnus NG-15 Berthing, cancel Houston. Credit: #411