On Sunday morning an Orbital ATK Antares booster launched from pad 0 at Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying the SS Gene Cernan, a Cygnus cargo vehicle carrying 3 tons of supplies, to orbit for a resupply mission to the International Space Station.
This mission marks the 8th resupply mission by Orbital ATK under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Program. Of note, this is the second launch of the Antares 230 configuration, which uses Russian RD-181 engines, as opposed to the AJ-26 engines used on the original Antares vehicle – these engines were the cause of the October 2014 explosion of the CRS-3 mission booster. Those engines themselves are re-branded NK-33 engines originally built for the failed Soviet lunar program. I might go into detail on that in the near future, now that I bring it up…
This launch was, as mentioned above, a success. The SS Gene Cernan is scheduled to be berthed to the ISS on November 14th.
With that all out of the way, time for launch footage, and for the sake of it, the post launch briefing, for those who may be interested. Enjoy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_CRS_OA-8E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares_(rocket)