Random Antares Media Day

I’m still not quite sure what to make of the random Antares media day that took place Monday at Wallops. They’re three months out from OA-8 and had nothing particularly newsy to announce. Cygnus isn’t integrated and viewable yet, as has been the case for past events like this.

I can’t help but think Orbital ATK got a bit nervous about people questioning Antares’ future, and are still trying desperately to sell a flight to anyone but NASA for CRS.

This, from Jeff Foust of SpaceNews, is of interest:

Culbertson said that Orbital ATK plans to use only the Antares for the foreseeable future. That includes the four remaining missions on its original Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA, including the OA-8 mission, as well as the six missions on its CRS-2 follow-on contract awarded last year. NASA has given an authorization to proceed with the first of those six, which he said is expected to launch some time in 2019.

OA-5 used the first two engines of the first 20 engines Orbital ATK purchased from Energomash, with two remaining options of 20 engines each. That means they have 9 flights’ worth of engines left in the first batch. With 10 flights listed above, I’d bet they don’t plan on acting on the second option until they’re able to land another customer.

If they don’t convince someone to fly, they won’t take the second option, will put one of these Cygnus flights on another vehicle, and that’ll be it for Antares.