A little while ago, Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus spacecraft lifted off on an Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), part of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) on Wallops Island, Virginia. After about ten minutes it successfully separated from the last stage of the rocket and started its journey. This is its second official mission, Orbital-2 or simply Orb-2, of transport of supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.

The Cygnus spacecraft will be destroyed in its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of its mission, despite what it’s been given a name. Orbital Sciences called it Janice Voss after the astronaut who passed away on February 6, 2012. Voss worked for some time for Orbital Sciences.

The Cygnus spacecraft’s cargo is composed half of supplies for the crew, starting with food, and the other half of scientific experiments, spare parts, various hardware and equipment. The total cargo is nearly 1,500 kg (almost 3,300 pounds).

The cargo includes 28 nanosatellites of the type called Dove, manufactured by Planet Labs. They will be launched from the International Space Station and will form the Flock 1b, which will complement the Flock 1 ones launched a few months ago. This more numerous fleet of nanosatellites will be able to take more images of the entire planet.

Another small satellite that will be launched from the International Space Station using the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) is the TechEdSat-4. It’s an experimental system to return to Earth small loads at controlled temperatures and pressures. The idea is to bring small samples to Earth from the Station or from other orbiting platforms wusing relatively small and cheap systems instead of spaceships.

For the Orb-2 mission, the Cygnus spacecraft has been equipped with a new system for the management of the approach to the International Space Station. In previous missions it used a standard double LIDAR system, this time one of the two systems has been replaced by a TriDAR (Triangulation and LIDAR Automated Rendezvous and Docking).

The TriDAR system was tested for the first time in a space flight in 2009, during a mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery. It’s a technology developed by the Canadian company Neptec Design Group Ltd. with funding from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency that uses lasers to precisely locate an object.

In this case, the TriDAR will be used to identify with precision the International Space Station to determine the position of the Cygnus spacecraft with respect to it. According to Neptec, the TriDAR could be used without problems to guide the Cygnus to dock directly to the Station. However, NASA still prefer to use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to guide it in the last stage of its journey.

The Cygnus spacecraft is due to dock with the International Space Station on Wednesday July 16. If there are no problems, the next day the crew will open the hatch and be able to start unloading its cargo.

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