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Expectations. As joel talked about, when this mission will be carrying over 8 000 pounds of cargo and supplies to the iss, we will stay there for approximately three months after which we’ll leave the iss, and we will begin our post departure mission where we’ll deploy several cubesats from Two different systems – the slingshot system, as well as a nanoracks external cubesat deployer. I do want to talk about one of those cubesats something called dobby set. It’S. The second cubesat developed by students at the khalifa university in abu dhabi in the united arab emirates, dhabi sat, was developed as part of khalifa’s space systems and technology program, which was established in 2015 as part of a collaboration with yasat, a uae satellite operator and northrop Grumman we’re proud to have taken part in this program and been part of the second cubesat development and mission and we’ll look forward to that that collaboration continuing into the future uh with the ng 15 mission. We’Ll continue to demonstrate cygnus as not just a cargo delivery and removal spacecraft, but also as a scientific laboratory. Uh cygnus has unique attributes and it provides additional capability not only to nasa but also commercial customers and these capabilities, along with our long experience now in human space flight, really positions us perfectly to support nasa’s goal of putting the first woman and next man on the Moon and then returning to the moon in a sustainable way, we’re continuing our current work on the habitat and logistics, outpost or halo module that’ll, be stationed at the lunar gateway and provide a place for crews to go before descending to the lunar surface and after returning From there and, of course, we’re also part of blue origin’s national team currently working on the next generation human landing system, both missions will benefit greatly from the experience we’ve gained on split cygnus on and around the international space station.

But while we continue our critical work on those missions, of course, we remain focused on supporting the iss low earth orbit scientific research programs and we’re ready to continue performing that critical role necessary to keep the iss flying and running at full capacity. Finally, you know we’re incredibly honored to name this mission in honor of catherine johnson, a nasa mathematician it’s our tradition, to name each cygnus after an individual who’s played a pivotal role in human space flight and mrs johnson was selected for her handwritten calculations that helped launch The first americans into space, as well as her accomplishments in breaking glass ceiling after glass ceiling as a black woman johnson, excelled in school and an early age graduating from high school at age 14 and then completing two college degrees, one in mathematics and one in french. By the age of 18., she was the only black woman selected to integrate west virginia university’s graduate program and during her career nasa, she became the first woman to receive author credit for a research paper at the agency, mrs johnson retired, from after more than 30 years. At nasa and in 2015, she received the presidential medal of freedom from president barack obama and her life was chronicled in the award, winning film hidden figures and a homework assignment for all of you is to go watch that movie after the cygnus launch. Mrs johnson lived a long and fulfilled life. She passed away just about a year ago, on february 24, 2020 at the age of 101.

. She is an inspiration to so many people, especially women of color, and prove time and time again that racial barriers and glass ceilings are breakable and shouldn’t have been there in the first place, as always, we’re excited to execute another successful cygnus mission in support to both Nasa and our commercial partners, and now i’ll turn it over to kurt everley who’s, going to talk a little bit more about antarctica. Kurt all right. Thank you, frank and uh on behalf of the antares team. We’Re super excited to be here for another launch of antares, along with our cygnus brethren and our teammates from virginia space who run our launch pad and, of course, the nasa range and our nasa customer it’s, cold and rainy down here at wallops. But nothing like what our colleagues in texas are going through, including my my brother, who’s shivering in austin right now so uh, hopefully uh things will clear up in texas and uh and, like joel said, uh, i really appreciate everyone who has done the work on their Part down there to get the cargo ready and get it up here to wallops uh during this difficult time for for texas, ng 15 will be the fourth launch of the 230 plus configuration of antares and that’s. What we developed for the crs 2 contract and that features more mass to orbit this 24 hour late load that you saw in the video and also cargo mass flexibility where nasa can vary the amount of cargo, that’s loaded, uh right up to the final day and That final load is going to start here in just about an hour.

That’Ll be 24 hours before launch, and so we’ve got our mobile clean room out over the front of antares and we’ve got the the nose cap of the fairing removed and the hatch is removed from cygnus, and so the personnel have a great physical access right inside. To be able to put the the final load cargo, which is, which is time sensitive uh for getting up to the space station. It’S been a smooth integration flow despite the conditions, and we really appreciate the virginia space spaceport guys as well as the the antares team. That’S uh that’s permanent resident down here for being out in the cold and the rain uh and being able to get all of the operations done right on the schedule uh despite the uh, the inclement conditions, so so really good. I appreciate all their hard work. I’Ll. Just recap: what we’ve been doing lately on monday, we had a mission dress rehearsal, where our launch conductors tortured the launch team, with a bunch of off nominal scenarios, to make sure that we’re ready to handle anything that might come up tomorrow with regard to anomalies or Off nominal situations and uh that was very good. On tuesday, we rolled the vehicle out very early in the morning, got out to the launch pad and went vertical, and then we did what we call a combined systems test on wednesday. And after that we went back down horizontal and moved the clean room over the front into that configuration for loading.

The final cargo that i just talked about so after the after that final load is done. Uh midday today, then this evening, we’ll start buttoning. Everything back up, the hatch will be closed on cygnus, then we’ll make sure it’s uh that it’s leak checked and then we’ll put the nose cap of the antares fairing on the front close that all up and then move the clean room out of the way, and Then late tonight, uh overnight we’ll go back vertical and then we’ve got uh one connection to make on the liquid oxygen loading line. We’Ll leak check that and then we’ll do final ordinance, arming and we’ll be ready for the five hour countdown to start at 7. 36 a.m. On saturday morning, shannon will will tell us about the weather coming up here, uh, but things are looking pretty good for us in terms of temperature. We have a 20 f low limit constraint and then, in terms of ground winds, we have a 29 knock constraint and, with that i’ll turn it over to shannon well, thank you, kurt and good morning. Everyone – and thank you all for your interest in this ng 15 mission. We here at nasa wallops, are very proud and excited to be part. Another commercial resupply mission for the international space station, namely this ng 15 mission, we’re very proud of the entire launch team, including our nasa team and all of our partner teams, as well for all of the hard work and dedication that it’s taken to get to.

This point of launch readiness to give you a snapshot of where we’re at currently for the range i’m happy to say that we are tracking for a green status. All of our systems are up and operating nominally. We have completed all of our pre launch testing. Our range configuration has been locked in and all of our pre launch range clearances are in place. So this mission, as kurt noted for his team, this mission has actually moved along quite smoothly for our team as well, and the team has worked very impressively together to remain safe as well during damage having to work a little differently than we would have previously. One interesting note for this particular mission in keeping with the honor of cygnus being named after catherine johnson, a female pioneer. We are also proud here at nasa wallops to be able to say that we have the first lead project manager or pm ms brittany mckinley at the helm of this particular antares mission. So we’re really happy and very proud of brittany and her team and all the efforts that she’s put in in leading the team to get to this point right now. The range is keeping an eye on it. As kurt mentioned, we have had some inclement weather here in the area over the last few days, so we are looking at where we’re at today and going into the weekend so let’s take a look right now at the long range forecast to see what we’re predicting And what we can expect for launch today, okay, so saturday, our prime launch day, you can see that we have a 25 probability of violence and what this means is that 25 of the time we would not be able to launch, because we would violate our launch, Commit criteria for weather – and in this case it would be ground winds and clouds, however, but what this also means is that we currently have a 75 favorable conditions for launch tomorrow.

Looking into sunday, our weather actually improves a bit where we only have a 5 probability of violation and then looking a little fur further out. You’Ll see that the weather to deteriorate going into the monday time frame where we’re expected to have some disturbed weather in the dominican region, giving us a 75 probability of violation going into month. But all in all, it’s. Looking good for tomorrow for our prime launch day, and so in closing the nasa wallops range is green.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMrkg2B01hw