NASA successfully descends the Antares rocket to the space station
Ciencia y Tecnología, mexico / By mexico
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched today Antares rocket on scientific and filling orders at the International Space Station (ISS), from the Atlantic Regional Space Airport, Wallops, in eastern Virginia.
The rocket from Northrup Grumman, a cargo ship Cygnus, took off at 04.01 local time (09:01 GMT), which illuminated the sky in the middle of the night. This is the ninth successful start since the Antares program began in 2013 in Wallops.
Cygnus is expected to arrive at the ISS on Monday at around 5:20 am local time (10:20 GMT), and then two astronauts from the International Space Station will use the robotic arm of the station to capture Cygnus.
The launch was planned at the beginning of Thursday morning, but due to bad weather it was delayed.
The unmanned gypsy ship carries almost four tons of food, equipment and research materials. He will research one of the scientific experiments on the vehicle how the universe was formed from a star star; the second is the pathology of Parkinson's disease.
Another involves the permanent production and repair of plastic materials in long space missions.
The experiments also include the installation of a new technology that allows the melting and reuse of plastic in order to reduce the amount of this material in the station and the amount of spare parts to be sent back, increase efficiency and save money.
Another attempt will be to analyze how the muscle tissue develops in space, the Michael J. Fox Foundation project on a protein closely linked to the development of Parkinson's disease.