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The Antares 230+ first stage is built by Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye State Design Office and Yuzhmash Machine Building plant and uses RD-181 engines from Russian company NPO Energomash.
An Antares 230+ rocket launched a Cygnus cargo spacecraft on 2023-08-01 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia at 8:31 p.m. Eastern.
Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket launched the S.S. Laurel Clark Cygnus spacecraft on 2023-08-01 from Wallops Island, Virginia for cargo delivery to the International Space Station.
The Antares 330 serves as a transition to a future Medium Launch Vehicle that will replace a solid-fuel upper stage with a version of the Miranda engine to increase payload capacity to 16,000 kg.
While Antares 330 is in development, Northrop Grumman will launch three Cygnus missions, NG-20, NG-21, and NG-22, on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.
The Antares 330 first stage increases Cygnus ISS mission payload performance from 8,120 kg to 10,500 kg.
Antares 230+ uses a first stage manufactured by Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye State Design Office and Yuzhmash Machine Building plant and RD-181 engines from Russian company NPO Energomash.
Northrop Grumman partnered with Firefly Aerospace in August 2022 to develop the Antares 330 rocket using a domestically manufactured first stage and engines.
Northrop Grumman plans to return Cygnus launches to Wallops for NG-23 and subsequent missions on Antares 330.
Firefly Aerospace partnered with Northrop Grumman in August 2022 to develop a new first stage for Northrop’s Antares rocket using engines Firefly is developing.
Northrop Grumman entered a partnership with Firefly Aerospace announced in August 2024 to produce a new Antares first stage using engines under development by Firefly.
NG-19 will be the last launch of the current version of Antares that uses a Russian RD-181 engine in its Ukrainian-built first stage.
The partnership between Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman was first established in August to build an all-American version of Northrop’s Antares rocket.
Northrop Grumman will build the Antares 330 with a first stage powered by seven Firefly-made Miranda engines.
Northrop Grumman announced a partnership with Firefly Aerospace in August 2022 to develop a new first stage for Antares.
While the new Antares vehicle is in development, Northrop Grumman plans to launch three Cygnus spacecraft on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.
The new Antares 330 will launch from Launch Pad 0A at MARS no earlier than late 2024.
Wallops currently hosts two Northrop Grumman Antares launches per year and an occasional Minotaur launch by Northrop Grumman.
Debris from an insulation blanket on the Antares rocket lodged in NG-18 Cygnus’s solar array deployment mechanism, but Cygnus had enough power from the one deployed array to function and reached the International Space Station on 2022-11-09.
An Antares rocket launched the Cygnus spacecraft on 2022-11-07.