This is the seventh flight of the Orbital ATK's unmanned resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its sixth flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Orbital ATK named the vehicle after astronaut Alan Poindexter who was the commander of STS-131.
Low Earth OrbitThis is the sixth crewed mission for China's Shenzhou program. Shenzhou-11 will carry two taikonauts, Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, to the Tiangong-2 space station launched earlier in the year. The taikonauts will stay in Tiangong-2 for 30 days.
Low Earth OrbitNBN-Co 1B, nicknamed Sky Muster II, is a high-throughput communications satellite tasked with providing high-speed broadband service to rural and remote areas of Australia. Launched along with it is the Indian geostationary communications satellite GSAT-18.
Geostationary Transfer OrbitScatSat-1 is a microsatellite of 371 kg and a mission life of 5 years. It is tasked to provide weather forecasting, cyclone prediction, and tracking services to India. This launch will also carry 7 other satellites, the 117kg Alsat-2B, the 103kg Alsat-1B & the 7kg Alsat-1N earth observation satellites for Algerian Space Agency, the 44kg Pathfinder-1 earth imager for Blacksky, the 8kg CanX-7 deorbiter for UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory, the 10kg Pratham Ionospheric Tomographer for IIT Bombay and the 5.25kg PiSat earth imager for PES University.
Low Earth OrbitLaunch VV07 from Arianespace launched 5 earth imaging satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit. PerúSAT-1 weighs 450kg and is able to capture images with a resolution of 70cm. The smaller Skybox satellites, each weighing 120kg, is able to achieve a resolution of approximately 1 meter.
Sun-Synchronous OrbitChina's second space station, Tiangong-2 is tasked to verify key technologies such as cargo transportation, on-orbit propellant resupply, and a medium-term stay of astronauts. It will also carry an array of scientific experiments, and will be equipped with a robotic arm to help the assembly and maintenance of the station.
Low Earth OrbitThe Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS REx) mission will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth and will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.
Heliocentric N/A