Yesterday, when in the U.S.A. it was afternoon, the Antares rocket was successfully launched in its first test flight, referred to as A-ONE, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. At its top there was a dummy mass that was meant to simulate the Cygnus spacecraft that is to be launched atop the rocket in its actual missions. In the previous days, the launch was postponed due to a hardware problem and bad weather.

The Antares rocket, developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, was known as Taurus II during its early stages of development. The first stage uses RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1), a form of very refined kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellants to power two engines derived from NK-33 (sold by Aerojet as AJ-26), originally developed for the Soviet space program. The second stage of the rocket Antares, called Castor 30, uses solid propellant and is derived from the Castor 120.

The Antares rocket is equipped with an optional third stage, which can be a BTS (Bi-Propellant Third Stage) or a type based on the ATK Star 48. The BTS derives from Orbital Science’s GEOStar and uses nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine as propellants and is designed to carry payloads up to their final orbits. The model based on the ATK Star 48 is equipped with a solid state Star 48BV engine and can be used to achieve orbits that require higher energies.

Orbital Sciences is one of the companies that received funding from NASA to take forward the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) for the development of spacecraft capable of carrying cargoes to the International Space Station. In 2008 the company signed with NASA a Commercial Resupply Services contract for the actual cargo transport.

The Antares rocket also carried three nanosatellites of the type PhoneSat, small cubes the size of a coffee cup built around a standard Nexus One smartphone. A fourth nanosatellite, called Dove-1, is of the CubeSat type, another really small experimental satellite built with standard components that can be found in stores.

Orbital Sciences and NASA have announced that the launch was successful and both the dummy that simulates the Cygnus spacecraft and the nanosatellites have regularly entered orbit. It’s expected that the Cygnus dummy remains in orbit for about two weeks before it starts decaying and eventually falls down burning in the atmosphere. It’s equipped with 70 sensors that recorded the stresses that will affect the true Cygnus during a launch.

Obviously, all data will be examined and if the conclusions are satisfactory Orbital Sciences could proceed with its schedule with the great step forward in June or early July, meaning the demonstration launch of the real Cygnus spacecraft and its docking with the International Space Station. SpaceX is ahead but if all goes well withing the year Orbital Science will be the second private company to carry cargo to the Station, opening up even more the doors to commercial space travel.

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