'Almost half the cargo Cygnus is bringing is dedicated to science on the International Space Station,' said Pete Hasbrook, manager of the International Space Station Program Science Office. The mice and about 500 pounds of late-stow cargo was loaded aboard overnight Tuesday. In a first for Northrop Grumman, the Cygnus spacecraft now features a 'pop-top' nose cone fairing that allows the late stowage of time-critical biological samples after the launcher has been hauled to the pad. SpaceX is gearing up to follow the Cygnus flight with launch of a Falcon 9 rocket April 26 to send a Dragon cargo ship to the station from Cape Canaveral, the company's 17th operational resupply mission. The Antares-Cygnus flight comes just 13 days after launch of a Russian Progress supply ship from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Three larger Cubesats will be deployed after the Cygnus departs the station in late July and another seven will be launched from the station through an airlock in the Japanese Kibo laboratory module.

'So doing something like this at a cost that you could get down to the elementary schools, I think is really great,' he said. 'If you can get these kids turned on, boy, you better step out of the road or they're going to run right over the top of you,' said Bob Twiggs, professor of Astronautics and Space Science at Morehead State University and an enthusiastic leader of the drive to develop small, low-cost satellites for research and STEM initiatives. The 'ThinSats,' each a little larger than a deck of cards, were equipped with simple sensors and other systems to measure aspects of the space environment before falling back into the atmosphere and burning up five to 10 days after release.ĭata from the ThinSats will be relayed back to classrooms over the internet via radio links with Globalstar relay stations. In addition to the station-bound cargo, the second stage of the Antares also carried a small Cubesat and 63 even smaller satellites built by students representing more than 70 schools across nine states.

On board are 7,575 pounds of equipment and supplies, including 2,065 pounds of crew food, clothing and other material, 3,459 pounds of research hardware, including the mouse habitat, 1,384 pounds of space station hardware and 140 pounds of spacewalk gear, computer equipment and other items.

Wallops rocket launch today