What you need to know to see Orb-2 launch tomorrow

What you need to know to see Orb-2 launch tomorrow

The Antares rocket will take three days to reach the ISS

There’s perhaps no greater human achievement than powered space travel, and watching it in action is truly awe inspiring. With the space shuttle program no longer in operation, fans of absurdly powerful rocket launches will have to get their fix another way: Tomorrow, July 13, the ISS Commercial Resupply Services Mission (Orb-2) will launch from Wallops Island, VA at 12:52 p.m. If you live in the mid-Atlantic and know where to look, you might be able to catch a glimpse.

Three days after its launch, theĀ Orbital Sciences Antares rocket will meet with the ISS to deliver much-needed cargo including research investigations, crew provisions, hardware, and science experiments from across the country. It will stay there for approximately 30 days. The rocket itself is massive, as described by NASA’s Orbital blog:

“The Antares rocket stands 131.5 feet tall, about the height of a 13-story building. The four poles surrounding the pad help protect the rocket from lightning. The water tower (formally the Water Deluge System) holds some 200,000 gallons of freshwater for cooling and noise suppression purposes.”

For viewing purposes, Orbital has provided a series of handy maps for those hoping to see the rocket before it leaves Earth’s atmosphere. The header image is a color-coded map indicating when after liftoff the rocket should be visible in the southeastern sky for observers from Boston all the way down to South Carolina. They’ve even included doctored Google Earth images showing where exactly to look for the best possible view. For example, here’s the view from the National Mall in Washington, D.C.:

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And here’s the view from Philadelphia:

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According to the NASA’s Orbital blog, “There is a 90-percent chance of favorable weather at the time of launch.”

Cygnus (the spacecraft’s name) will be pulling double duty: Once the crew of the ISS unloads its cargo, it will then be loaded with materials intended for disposal – space trash, essentially. At the end of the mission, Cygnus will disengage from the ISS, eventually re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

 

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