A ULA Atlas V 401 rocket with a 4 meter fairing, no solid rocket boosters, and a single engine on its Centaur upper stage launches with the OA-7 mission to resupply the ISS via an Orbital ATK, now Northrup Grumman, Cygnus spacecraft.
The Antares rocket which Orbital Sciences launched with 2 refurbished NK-33 engines produced in the Soviet Union in the 60's and 70's failed dramatically when one engine exploded seconds after liftoff and the rocket crashed back onto its pad at the Wallops Island launch facility.
This required Orbital, soon merged with ATK, to find another rocket to launch their Cygnus spacecraft while they found new engines and modified their rocket to accommodate them.
They chose the ULA Atlas V rocket. The first mission to launch, OA-7, this one, suffered an in-flight anomaly when the first stage shut down early. The Centaur was able to make up the difference however, and Cygnus, named S.S. John Glenn, was injected into the correct orbit and resupplied the space station.
This image was taken from Playalinda Beach in Cape Canaveral National Seashore. The
Space Coast Photography Studios
- They/Them
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Two Central Florida photographers with an interest in nature, landscape, bird, flower, space, technology, and architecture photography.
The Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS) on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex (KSCVC).
APAS was co-developed by Soviet and American engineers as part of a plan to dock an American Apollo spacecraft with a Soviet spacecraft, at first a Salyut station, and ultimately a Soyuz spacecraft.
APAS was different from previous docking systems, which had one "active" mechanism on one spacecraft, and one "passive" mechanism on the other spacecraft. Using APAS, either spacecraft can be the active or passive partner.
The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), in which an Apollo spacecraft used an APAS adapter to dock to an APAS-equipped Soyuz in orbit.
The Soviets continued to work on the APAS system, planning to use it for their reusable Shuttle-like orbiter, Buran, and one module on the Mir station, Kristall, was equipped with two APAS adapters to accommodate Buran.
Buran ended up making only one flight under automated control, but the docking system for Buran was moved to the American Space Shuttle so that the Shuttle could dock to Mir, and to prepare for the construction of the coming International Space Station (ISS).
The current docking system standard, the International Docking System (IDS) or Low-Impact Docking System (LIDS), is based on APAS.
