Glenn gets another lofty honor
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — John Glenn’s trailblazing legacy took flight Tuesday as a cargo ship bearing his name rocketed toward the International Space Station.
An Atlas rocket provided the late-morning lift to orbit, just as it did for Glenn 55 years ago.
The commercial cargo ship, dubbed the S.S. John Glenn, holds nearly 7,700 pounds of food, equipment and research for the space station. It’s due there Saturday, two days after the arrival of two fresh astronauts.
NASA’s shipper, Orbital ATK, asked Glenn’s widow, Annie, for permission to use his name for the spacecraft, following his December death.
Glenn, an original Mercury 7 astronaut from New Concord, Ohio, became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. He launched again in 1998 aboard shuttle Discovery at age 77, the oldest person ever in space. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery two weeks ago.
“It is clearly a chance one more time to show John Glenn’s name emblazoned in space,” said Frank Culbertson, a former astronaut who now heads Orbital ATK’s space-systems group. “And I hope that putting his name on the space station is an inspiration to the next generation to aspire to do similar things, push the boundaries.”
Besides supplies, the capsule contains a banner showing Glenn in his orange spaceshuttle launch suit — it’s the first thing the station astronauts will see when they open the craft — as well as memorabilia for his family. Because the launch was delayed a month by hydraulic problems at the pad and on the rocket, no Glenn family members were able to make it to Cape Canaveral, Culbertson said.
Orbital ATK — one of NASA’s prime delivery services for the space station, along with SpaceX — normally uses its own Virginiabased Antares rockets to launch its Cygnus cargo ships, named after the swan constellation. But it opted for the United Launch Alliance’s bigger Atlas V rocket in order to carry up a heftier load. A new, larger greenhouse is flying up, along with equipment needed for a spacewalk next month.
“Looks like we nailed the orbit once again,” said Vern Thorp, a manager for the rocket-maker.
NASA’s 360-degree video streaming of the launch — the first such attempt for a live broadcast — didn’t go as well. Something went wrong moments before liftoff, and the video skipped over the actual rising of the rocket from the pad. NASA said it would try again, perhaps on an upcoming SpaceX delivery mission.
Mission Control beamed up the launch broadcast for the three astronauts at the space station, which is orbiting 250 miles high. The American, Russian and Frenchman will be joined Thursday by another American and Russian who will take off from Kazakhstan.