Northrop Grumman Launches 17th Cygnus Resupply Mission

Launch of Antares with NG-17 | Credit: NASA/NASA TV

On Saturday, February 19 at 12:40pm ET (17:40 UTC), Northrop Grumman launched the Cygnus CRS NG-17 resupply mission to the ISS atop an Antares 230+ rocket from LP-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NG-17 is the 6th Cygnus mission in the CRS (Commercial Resupply Services) 2 contract NASA made to extend the original CRS contract with SpaceX (for 12 Dragon 1 flights) and Northrop Grumman (for 8 Cygnus flights). The initial contracts were eventually extended for 8 more Dragon flights and 3 more Cygnus flights. The second contract, CRS 2, has 9 Dragon 2 flights, 8 more Cygnus flights, and 7 Sierra Space Dream Chaser flights. Antares 230+ is the fifth version of Antares, which is currently only used for Cygnus flights. Cygnus will dock to the ISS's Unity module on Monday, February 21 at 4:35am ET (9:35 UTC). This Cygnus spacecraft is named S.S. Piers Sellers. Piers Sellers was a NASA astronaut who flew on three space shuttle missions. He died in 2016. This was the 16th orbital launch attempt of 2022 and the 16th Antares launch.