Launch of Antares medium capacity rocket took place for the second time in 2021 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island (Virginia, the United States) on August 11 at 01:01 Kyiv time (on August 10 at 18:01 UTC). It orbited cargo vehicle Cygnus to deliver 3724 kg of payload to the International Space Station as ordered by NASA.

Antares is a two-stage rocket. Core structure of the Antares’ Stage 1 was developed and produced by Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye State Design Office and Yuzhmash Machine Building plant in cooperation with Ukraine’s Hartron-Arkos (Kharkiv), Hartron-Ucom (Zaporizhzhia), Chezara, Rapid (Chernihiv) and Kievprylad (Kyiv) etc. as ordered by the US corporation Northrop Grumman.

Antares pre-launch processing, testing and launch were supported by the specialists from Yuzhnoye State Design Office, Yuzhmash Machine Building plant and Hartron-Arkos. Real-time launch technical support, acquisition and processing of the telemetry information were provided from the Yuzhnoye SDO territory as stipulated by the contract. Ukrainian specialists have provided full scope of services in the area of their responsibility.

Under Antares program the Ukrainian party has accomplished all the design, test and Stage 1 Core Structure hardware production liabilities.

Cargo vehicle Cygnus is dubbed NG-16 S.S. Ellison Onizuka in the honor of US astronaut of Hawaiian-Japanese origin, who died in the destruction of Space Shuttle Challenger.

NG-16 missions are as follows:

– the basic objective is to deliver science & research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory and its crew and disposal of the used cargo from the ISS with subsequent safe, destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere;

– the vehicle will deliver the 3D printer, which uses the material, simulating regolith; system to remove the carbon dioxide from the spacecraft and the mounting bracket to be installed on the solar array load-bearing frame during the spacewalk in the end of August;

– riding as a payload on the Cygnus is a Northrop Grumman and Space Development Agency (SDA) experimental mission called Prototype Infrared Payload (PIRPL). Upon arrival at the ISS, PIRPL will begin collecting infrared data, which will define possible by expanding detection capabilities. The data collected will aid the development of algorithms for the next generation of tracking satellites.

Since 2013 Antares rocket was launched 15 times, 14 of which being successful.

As a recap, last year Antares program won The Laurels for Team Achievement Award, being one of the most prestigious team awards of the International Academy of Astronautics.

By joining the forces and knowledge of two different schools of space technology, Ukrainian and American engineers have managed to promptly develop a reliable, effective and low-cost commercial launch vehicle for cargo delivery missions to the ISS under the NASA’s COTS and CRS programs. This made it possible to deliver food and equipment to the ISS, enabling the international team of astronauts to maintain ISS functioning and carry out scientific and research experiments aboard the ISS.