Orbital Antares User Manual
Page 55
Antares
®
OSP-3
User’s Guide
Section 6.0
– Mission Integration
Release 1.1
July 2013
44
The typical Mission Cycle interweaves the following activities:
a. Mission management, document exchanges, meetings, and formal reviews required to coordinate
and manage the launch service.
b. Mission analyses and payload integration, document exchanges, and meetings.
c. Design, review, procurement, testing and integration of all mission-peculiar hardware and soft-
ware.
d. Range interface, safety, and flight operations activities, document exchanges, meetings and re-
views.
Figure 6.2-1 details the typical Mission Cycle for a specific OSP-3 launch and how this cycle folds into the
Orbital vehicle production schedule with typical payload activities and milestones. A typical Mission Cycle
is based on an minimum 24 month interval between mission authorization and launch. This interval re-
flects the OSP-
3 contractual schedule and has been shown to be an efficient schedule based on Orbital’s
past program execution experience. OSP-3 does allow flexibility to negotiate either accelerated or ex-
tended mission cycles that may be required by unique payload requirements. Payload scenarios that
might drive a change in the duration of the mission cycle include those that have funding limitations, rapid
response demonstrations, extensive analysis needs or contain highly complex payload-to-launch vehicle
integrated designs or tests.
Figure 6.2-1. Antares Mission Cycle