An astronaut who died from injuries sustained in a plane crash before she could launch to the International Space Station (ISS) is being memorialized with the naming of Northrop Grumman’s first cargo spacecraft to fly on a SpaceX rocket.
The S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson is targeted to lift off no sooner than Jan. 29, 2024, atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After a two-day rendezvous, the Cygnus supply ship will probably be captured by the space station’s robotic arm and berthed to the Earth-facing port on the Unity node for the Expedition 70 crew to unload.
“At Northrop Grumman, we’re proud to support NASA and the astronauts aboard the International Space Station by delivering crew supplies, equipment and scientific experiments with our Cygnus spacecraft,” said Doug Hurley, Northrop Grumman’s director of business development and former NASA astronaut, in a video statement. “Before each mission, we name Cygnus after a trailblazer within the space community.”
A medical doctor and space medicine fellow, Robertson was also a multi-engine rated flight instructor and avid aerobatic pilot with greater than 1,500 hours of flight time. On May 22, 2001, two years after she had been chosen to develop into a NASA astronaut and accomplished her basic training, Robertson was in a small private-plane crash in Manvel, Texas.
Two days later, she died consequently of her injuries.
“At just 38 years old on the time of her death, she had already achieved a lot, and her legacy in medicine, aviation and space exploration continues to encourage generations which have followed,” said Hurley.
Robertson was supporting the ISS Expedition 2 crew, coordinating activities between the Astronaut Office and Mission Control, when she died. She was expected to be assigned to her own flight to the space station the next yr.
“Members of Patty’s astronaut class brought a photograph of her on their space shuttle mission, along along with her NASA name tag as a tribute,” Hurley said, referring to a memorial display that is still aboard the space station to today.
Considered one of those self same classmates, Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, is scheduled to launch to the ISS while the S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson is berthed on the station.
The Robertson is Northrop Grumman’s twentieth Cygnus spacecraft to fly since its first demonstration mission in September 2013. Over the past 10 years, the corporate has delivered greater than 138,000 kilos (63,000 kilograms) of cargo to the space station.
The NG-20 Cygnus will deliver food, supplies and equipment to the Expedition 70 crew, including the primary surgical robot to operate on the ISS and an orbit re-entry platform that collects thermal protection systems data. Other investigations aboard the Robertson include a 3D cartilage cell culture that maintains healthy cartilage in a lower gravity environment and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Metal 3D printer, an autonomous semiconductor manufacturing platform.
Northrop Grumman contracted with SpaceX to launch three Cygnus missions as the corporate transitions its Antares rocket from using Russian-built engines to U.S.-based engines developed with Firefly Aerospace. The brand new Antares 330 is predicted to be ready by the top of 2024.
The S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson is the sixth Cygnus to be named for a lady and the second to honor a member of NASA’s seventeenth group of astronauts chosen in 1998. Robertson’s classmate Alan “Dex” Poindexter, who died in 2012 as results of injuries suffered in a water sports accident, was similarly memorialized in 2016.
Other past namesakes have included former company executive J.R. Thompson, U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) candidate Robert Lawrence, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and NASA astronauts David Low, Gordon Fullerton, Janice Voss, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Gene Cernan, John Young, Roger Chaffee, Alan Bean, Ellison Onizuka, Piers Sellers and Sally Ride.
Probably the most recent Cygnus, which was launched in August and stays on the space station, was named the S.S. Laurel Clark after the STS-107 mission specialist who died on the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.